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TonyLee wrote:Ya cost of import is way out of my prce range. Have 3 pretty fair patts now. I would like to add a good jagd just for something a little different.

"The Dogs Of The British Islands", by J. H. Walsh.
The Airedale Terrier.

In support of my views, I shall quote from a letter just received from a gentleman who has owned Airedales, and whose opinions are identical with what I have stated. He writes:

"Airedale terriers are a failure.
The result of my experiences of them is that I find them to have good noses, they will beat a hedgerow, will find and kill rats and rabbits, and work well with ferrets. They are good water dogs and companions, possessing a fair amount of intelligence. This is the sum total of their excellence.

They came to 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 241b., I have Never found one game - at least to my idea of the word".

This is strong speaking, but this gentleman's experiences corroborate every word of what has gone before, and the pitiful exhibition made by some Airedales when tried at a badger at Wolverhampton last January was literally the laugh of the show.

So far, I am aware that my endeavours to supply information about the origin of the Airedale have not been attended with success, but upon the merits of the breed I can speak with more authority, having had the benefit of the experience of a gentleman who took it up some short time back from the glowing accounts he had heard of its gameness and bottom.
The result was most mortifying.
He could make nothing of the dogs, and was heartily glad to get rid of them.
From what he tells me concerning Airedales, I have no doubt that they potter about the banks of a river, and take water well, and that they will kill rats, which, as they scale from 401b. to 501b., is not much in their favour.

I will even go further, and admit that specimens may be produced which will tackle a badger under protest; but not another step will I go in favour of the Airedales as a game, hard-bitten race.

Summing up the merits and demerits of the breed, it must be said of the Airedale that his want of heart, his size, the diversity of types, and tendency to throw back in breeding, are great drawbacks, which his fondness for water, scarcely out-balances.
Therefore, when we find, as I believe we can, that a wire-haired Scotch, Dandie Dinmont, Skye, Irish, or small bull terrier possesses all the gameness of the Airedale (in addition to which they take up one quarter of the room, and can go to earth), the question only remains,
" Why keep an Airedale ? '
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From Daily Terrier Dose Website
'In this particular case, even the word "terrier" does not tell you very much, as a pit bull is not a terrier by any definition (it is too large to go ground and it does not even look like a terrier). The pit bull is a molosser breed, pure and simple.

Adding the name "terrier" to its name does not change the reality, any more than calling me "Sue" would make me a woman. For the record, the pit bull is not the only "terrier" that has been misnamed.

The airedale is almost pure otterhound underneath it all, and is a terrier in appearance only do to tremendous amounts of clipping and breeding to make it look more and more like a welsh terrier.

Go look at an old Airedale picture (it is not a very old breed) and you will see it is just an odd looking otterhound that has been tidied up. A hound is not a terrier, not does the Airedale fit within the terrier form or function mold.''