360 



THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 



to do with Airedales join at once, but very 

 shortly a host of new fanciers was enrolled, 

 and crowds of people began to take the 

 breed up who had had nothing to do with 

 it, or, indeed, anyother sort of dog previously. 

 An excellent idea in connection with the 

 new club was the holding of novice shows 

 and what are called evening matches. These 

 latter proved an especial attraction. The 

 members of the club meet together at them, 

 and matches are decided between their 

 dogs, some being the outcome of challenges 



A TYPICAL AIREDALE HEAD. 



made and accepted before the meeting, but 

 many being got up on the spur of the moment 

 at the meeting itself, members taking dogs 

 there on the chance of finding a willing 

 opponent. A truly sporting spirit was thus 

 engendered by the new club, it being quite 

 a treat to attend any of its functions. No 

 one seems to mind whether he wins or not, 

 the merits of the opponent's dog being fully 

 acknowledged just as the faults in the 

 member's own dog are freely admitted. An 

 excellent nursery this, not only for the 

 production of the true fancier who takes 

 his licking like a man, but also for the making 

 of really competent judges, who, frequently 

 seeing dogs pitted against each other and 

 capably judged, get in the way of properly 

 weighing up the points of a terrier, judging 

 in a correct method, and thus eventually 

 themselves fittingly occupying the judicial 

 chair. 



Some few years after the foundation of 



this club, a junior branch of it was started, 

 and this, ably looked after by Mr. R. Lauder 

 McLaren, is almost as big a success in its 

 way as is the parent institution. Other 

 clubs have been started in the north and 

 elsewhere, and altogether the Airedale is 

 very well catered for in this respect, and, 

 if things go on as they are now going, is 

 bound to prosper and become even more 

 extensively owned than he is at present. To 

 Mr. Holland Buckley, Mr. G. H. Elder, 

 Mr. Royston Mills, and Mr. Marshall Lee, 

 the Airedale of the present day owes much. 

 These gentlemen, it is true, are all south 

 countrymen, and it is perhaps odd that the 

 Airedale, being a north-country dog, 

 should receive its great impetus from 

 the south. 



In the north the Airedale breeders 

 have been plodding steadily on, and 

 have not been idle by any means ; 

 they continue to produce a beautiful 

 class of terrier which can always hold 

 its own with anything produced else- 

 where ; but in the very nature of things 

 the breeders and owners being much more 

 spread about than is the case with their 

 southern confreres they probably have not 

 the facilities for frequent meetings. It is 

 in no sense derogatory to them to say that 

 the Airedale owes a great deal in recent 

 years to the southerner ; it is, in fact, just 

 the opposite, and does them infinite credit. 

 They are in reality the fathers of the breed, 

 and it is solely owing to the quality of their 

 productions that the gentlemen from the 

 south have in such large numbers taken up 

 their breed a fact which one may be sure 

 is not objected to in the slightest by the 

 gentlemen of the north. 



The Airedales that have struck the writer 

 as the best he has come across, besides those 

 already mentioned, are Master Briar, Clonmel 

 Monarch, Clonmel Marvel, Dumbarton Lass, 

 Tone Masterpiece, Mistress Royal, Master 

 Royal, Tone Chief, Huckleberry Lass, and 

 Fielden Fashion. Two other champions in 

 York Sceptre and Clonmel Floriform were, as 

 far as he can remember, unseen by the writer. 

 Nearly every one of these is now, either in the 

 flesh or spirit, in the United States or Canada. 



