The Airedale Terrier. 161 



me with a great reputation for gameness, but out of 

 fourteen that I have personally tried at badger and 

 fighting with a bull terrier of 24lb., I have never 

 found one game at least, to my idea of the 

 word." 



But any terrier that would do the above work 

 better than another would be worth keeping. Were 

 a dog like he of 45lb. weight or more to be 

 used at a badger he should kill the poor brute 

 instead of merely " drawing " him. I think that 

 those individuals who at Wolverhampton show about 

 1883 made a semi-public exhibition of him against a 

 badger, an animal the like of which the poor dog 

 had never seen before, were extremely badly advised. 

 As for fighting, any terrier fond of it is a nuisance to 

 his owner and to the owner of any other dog. For 

 the Airedale terrier was claimed superiority as a 

 worker of the riverside after rats, and as an 

 assistant to the gun in working hedgerows and 

 thick coppices, which, it was said, he could do 

 better than a spaniel and take up less room than 

 a retriever. 



However, perhaps what Mr. E. Bairstow, of Brad- 

 ford, has written about the Airedale terrier in " The 

 Dog Owner's Annual," and which has been revised 

 for publication here, will be of interest, he being 

 one of the oldest breeders of this dog, of which I 



M 



