442 The Dog Book 



should be over forty-five pounds. Mr. Mason lived near Bradford, knew 

 Airedales well and exhibited them, and the bulk of the fancy were of his 

 opinion as to weight. We very well remember the occasion when we first 

 heard of this breed. We were sitting at Verrey's, in Regent Street, in com- 

 pany with Mr. Krehl, Mr. Alfred Benjamin and one or two others, when 

 Vero Shaw dropped in fresh from a trip to some Yorkshire show, and told 

 us as the latest news in dogdom — ^that they had a terrier in the north that 

 weighed forty pounds. Every person present expressed the opinion that no 

 dog of anything like that weight should be considered or called a terrier. 

 That was some time in 1879 ^^ ^^^ early months of 1880. In Vero Shaw's 

 "Book of the Dog" the illustration shows a dog with long hair on the skull, 

 and he was a leading prize winner. 



Finally, as showing consanguinity, we have the Airedale and Yorkshire 

 puppies bom black and tan, and not coming to their colour till they change 

 their coats so that it is not anything so much out of the way to say that these 

 two extremes of the terrier family came from the small grizzle-and-tan 

 rough terrier of the Bradford district of Yorkshire. 



How the Airedale was made is well known to old-timers. Starting 

 with this game little fellow, kept as a vermin and fighting dog by the quarry- 

 men and mill hands, a cross was made with the bull terrier, great accounts 

 having reached Yorkshire as to the .smooth-coated dog's fighting ability. 

 This gave more size to the home dogs, and some of them were then crossed 

 with the otter hounds kept in the adjoining Wharfedale, which was not a 

 manufacturing district, so that otters were found in the Wharfe but not in 

 the factory-lined Aire. From this mixture of blood came a game dog fit 

 for fighting or poaching, two of the recreations of the tough element of that 

 section of Yorkshire. 



The bull terrier, being at that time little more than half bull and half 

 game terrier of indefinite breeding, did not seem to affect the stronger bred 

 blue grizzle-and-tan in the way of colour, and as the otter hounds were 

 little more than a cross between the same kind of terrier and a foxhound 

 or harrier, this infusion assisted in opposing any white influence from the 

 bull terrier. From the otter hound, however, came heavier ears, and these 

 were conspicuous faults in the Airedales of twenty and even ten years ago. 

 In Yorkshire-bred Irish terriers there is far more inclination to heavy ears 

 than in those of pure Irish strains, and this we have attributed to some illicit 

 mixing of the varieties, as it is an Airedale attribute and never was Irish. 



