THE BEDLINGTON TERRIER 491 



show committees that recognition to which he is so well entitled. 

 He has, however, now gained his true position among modern 

 Terriers, and many schedules provide classes for the breed. 



As will be seen from the statements of the writers quoted, the 

 Bedlington Terrier has long been considered a distinct breed, the 

 stock from which the modern specimens have sprung having been 

 peculiar to the district for at least thirty years before the name 

 Bedlington was applied to them, the first dog so called being Mr. 

 Ainsley's Young Piper, whelped about the year 1825. Such original 

 stock may be regarded as a branch of the Rough Terrier family, 

 recognised by all of our old sporting writers as common to England ; 

 although it is probable that the result of the comparative isolation 

 secured to the dog by his domicile in the Border dales was to 

 create well-recognised family characters, of a general nature common 

 to all in the district, and pretty clearly separating them from other 

 coexisting strains of Terriers bred in other and widely removed 

 parts of the country. 



As showing the character of what may well be termed one of the 

 ancestors of the Bedlington Terriers of the present day, the following 

 extract from a letter written by Mr. Joseph Ainsley, which appeared 

 in a sporting paper in 1870, may be of interest : 



" With regard to the doings of Piper, it would take a volume to 

 contain them ; but I may mention that he was set on a badger at 

 eight months old, and from that time until he was fourteen years 

 old was 'constantly at work, more or less, with badgers, foxes, 

 foul marts, otters, and other vermin. He drew a badger after he 

 was fourteen years old, when he was toothless and nearly blind, 

 after several other Terriers failed." 



The following, which appeared in the Newcastle Chronicle, 

 July 24th, 1872, gives a fair statement of facts respecting this breed, 

 and is valuable as embodying the opinions of the late Mr. Thomas 

 John Pickett, well known to exhibitors generally under his sobriquet 

 of the Duke of Bedlington a title earned by his great success 

 as a breeder and an exhibitor of these Terriers. The writer in 

 the Chronicle says : 



"Of the breed of dogs for which this locality is noted, none 

 has caused so much controversy as the Bedlington Terrier, which 

 is, I believe, the last new-comer amongst recognised breeds 

 exhibited at the shows. Indeed, a furious controversy has been 

 raging as to whether the strain is deserving of recognition as a 

 fixed and well-defined breed at all, and some of our South-country 

 friends have made fun of the question ' What is a Bedlington 

 Terrier ? ' To this query the best answer that can be given is that 

 furnished by perhaps the most successful exhibitor of the present 

 day, Thomas John Pickett, of Grey Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 



