Go to PART 2: The Border Terrier as a Pet

PART 1

What The Border Terrier Isn't

I liked the scruffy, mongrel look of the Border Terrier the first time I saw one in a book lent to me by a good friend. But looks are never a good reason to buy a dog. It took me over six months to decide I wanted one as a companion and household pet. I've read a lot about them before and since.

The Border Terrier[1] is a reasonably healthy dog, not overly afflicted it seems by the inherited genetic defects that are found in too many breeds today.[2] The Border Terrier isn't too big and isn't too small. He's not sleek or fancy or fluffy, like something embarrassing a bloke might see quivering in a car's rear window. Thankfully, left to his own devices there's no chance of him making a fashion statement at the local dog show. The Border Terrier can look gloriously and rebelliously ungroomed, even when perfectly clean.

He's not compromised due to being bred strictly to the seldom questioned Breed Standard.[3] He doesn't have an lumbering gait but rather a graceful way of walking. His face and sooty snout don't look like they've been hit by a bus. He doesn't have short bandy legs, or a low underbelly. He doesn't have weird folds of skin all over the place.

He doesn't have ugly, drooping eyelids, or slabbers running off his inside-out sagging lips all over your new show shoes. Heaven forbid you should ever come across a Border Terrier sporting a pretty bow, and what a travesty it would be for him to be taken outdoors in winter wearing a Pets At Home[4] Pink Reversible Dog Rain Mac. His wiry double-thickness natural coat does the job perfectly well.

All in all quite a handsome wee dog then – the endowed, active kind I like to go walking with and have stand beside me while I rest at a hedgerow gate to take in the view. Most definitely a man's dog I'd say – no disrespect intended to any ladies who own one or breed them, as many seem to do.

Border Terrier History and “Legitimate Work”

The history of the Border Terrier certainly underscores its more masculine connections. But sadly all is not well. Almost every book you read (see list at the bottom of the next page) will mention or emphasise that this breed is really a “working dog”. We are repeatedly reminded not to forget the Border Terrier's roots. The Border Terrier “was brought into being principally to work alongside hounds and to play its part in hunting foxes” (Frank and Jean Jackson, Border Terriers, pub. 1997).

By no stretch of the imagination could I be called an animal rights campaigner. Nor, for that matter, am I a bearded 20-something Green Party activist. Like most of Ireland's workaday population, I don't lose sleep worrying about landfill sites, climate change and stressed polar bears marooned on melting ice floes. I don't dig up dead people or break into animal research labs to liberate tortured guinea-pigs and mice.

But I do have a real problem with the concept of working dogs when it's specifically related to the hunting of wild animals as a sport. This is as good a place as any to bring up an uncomfortable truth. According to Frank and Jean Jackson again, hunting is “not... merely a fashionable winter sport”. Indeed it's not.

“Hunting... remains the most effective, and arguably the least cruel, means of controlling the foxes which would otherwise play havoc with the sheep on which the farmers... rely for their livelihood” (Frank and Jean Jackson, yet again). Arguably.

It seems too many fail to understand that pests and vermin must be controlled. It's OK for us sitting in our comfortable and civilised suburbia, but out among the rolling hills there are persistent little beggars causing real problems for landowners and farmers. The need to deal with them is a serious matter. We must move beyond the humorous British perception that hunting's about silly clothes, top end Land Rovers and those upper class double-barrelled names that aren't made-up.

Whether we like it or not, it's long been considered necessary to control the significant numbers of foxes[5], rats, rabbits, mink, stoats, weasels, otters and badgers. But even so, do you ever ask yourself when and why this legitimate work became a sport? And it's pertinent to ask, too, How can this sport be enjoyable?

We know it's what many rural folk in Great Britian and Ireland have always done. They go off on The Hunt; they aim to have a jolly good time while they're at it. It's a social occasion, something they're born into and will never give up. Why should they? It's unreasonable to expect them to be responsive and agreeable when many vocal animal lovers are disgusted by their “cruel” hunting activities and want laws passed to protect animals from being flushed out and savaged to death by fired up packs of dogs.

We should understand that many in our rural community are unavoidably conditioned by the long-standing hunting tradition – it's an integral part of a lifestyle going back centuries. But even so, there's no escaping the fact that in the minds of many this country tradition can never legitimise hunting as a sport.

It's perhaps striking that authors of books on Border Terriers invariably show their social background and conditioning when they write about hunting with 'working' terriers. Verité Reily Collins has spent “many happy days... running over the fields” hunting mink with Border Terriers. This, she claims, is “the sport... at its best”. The “mink had killed or chased away most of the birds”, so now there was less birdsong. To kill two songless birds with one stone, she and her friends liked to get out and “enjoy the hunt”: “...once a Border had had a go at those vicious little mink there wasn't much left to make a coat...” Sounds like an equally vicious little Border Terrier, doesn't it?

Others use terms like “enjoy some hunting”, “excitement of the hunting field”, “rats are fair game at any time”. We are told “a good Border will kill them with a zest and flair that almost raises the whole thing to an art”. Of course, after all this enjoyable and almost arty sport it may be necessary to “bathe any bites... for they [the rats] are dirty animals and their bites invariably become infected”. Overall, then, we learn that hunting is “enjoyable and useful... laudable...”(these quotes from a book by Frank Jackson and W. Ronald Irving, pub. 1969).

Anne Roslin-Williams' book, The Border Terrier, first published in 1976, offers some uncomfortable insights: “It is quite amazing the amount of punishment a Border will take, and equally amazing the speed with which even the most ghastly bites will heal. However, a badly bitten terrier should be kept at home until healed...” That, of course, is the humane thing to do.

But how bad does it really get for these Border Terriers while their owners are enjoying good sport? “[Smuts'] injuries were terrible, a broken nose, blind in one eye, as well as being de-hydrated and very thin. However, with expert attention from the veterinary surgeon who had been standing by all this time in the surgery to receive him, should he be alive, and careful nursing he recovered” (Anne Roslin-Williams).

Let me ask you something: could you be entertained by a sport knowing the dogs involved may well be injured and left in pain? To the conditioned minds of the hunting fraternity this situation could never be considered as cruelty. It's deemed an acceptable risk, yet the same author, writing elsewhere, is so sensitive to her dogs' comfort and welfare she recommends coat stripping (see next page) to prevent the animal feeling “uncomfortable and itchy”.

“There is no thrill,” Roslin-Williams further affirms, “like that of seeing your dog doing the work for which it has been bred for generations... However, if one has a highly prized showdog and would mind the odd tooth knocked out or jaw broken, don't risk it. The choice is yours.” As for the general suitability of these 'working' Border Terriers she writes: “Bad tempered and shy terriers should not be bred, or bred from, and really should be 'six feet under'.”

In the wider context of kennel management she mentions resorting to “various tricks” to “separate two fighting Borders”. These include twisting ears, burning noses with cigarettes, and, “If all else fails, the old 'terrierman's' trick of simultaneously inserting a sharpened pencil up the rectum of each dog usually works.”

All of this is very different to comments found in her book, Border Terriers Today, published in 1996, some seven years after the 3rd revision of The Border Terrier: “The best way to separate fighting dogs is by emptying the pepper-pot around their noses.”

According to Montagu H. Horn whose work appears in a book by Walter J. F. Gardner, the “sport” of hunting with dogs “is good entertainment...” Gardner also shares material from a 1933 publication: “[The Border Terrier] dived into a small rabbit hole 10 yards away and a bout of blood curdling yells were heard, out came the Otter and Sandy with a twinkle in his eye and blood streaming from his nose...” Presumably this too was entertaining.

In the same book we read: “[The Border Terrier] recovered but was in an exhausted state. When they came on her there were the bodies of two foxes and four cubs. She must have had a hard time with that lot.” How can anyone undergo such an seismic mental shift that he can justify all the pain and suffering these 'working dogs' can inflict and endure? Can this ever be an acceptable part of sporting entertainment?

In the past this blanket acceptance of the serious physical risk to dogs even extended to a club's rules. Quoting again from Gardner: “Adam was a keen worker of his dogs. On one occasion when pedigrees were mentioned he said, 'the best pedigree a Border can have is the marks on its face.' His Coquetdale Vic had all the flesh torn from her underjaw while working. In the period of the Original Northumberland Border Terrier club... she won a challenge cup three times in succession... At that time one of the club's rules was 'if any part of a terrier's face was missing through legitimate work, that part was deemed perfect.' The last time Vic won the challenge cup she had lost part of her underjaw.”

Balanced Border Terrier owners should distance themselves from the questionable sport that overshadows hunting with dogs.

Go to PART 2: The Border Terrier as a Pet

[1] “These terriers have been kept in the Borders for a very long time now, but the name 'Border Terrier' is of quite recent date, being given to them because they were bred and kept mostly in the English and Scottish Border districts” (Jacob Robson writing about 1896, quoted in The Border Terrier, Anne Roslin-Williams). “The control of foxes in that part of the Cheviots hunted by the Border Foxhounds and its predecessors needed a particular sort of terrier, and everything about the Border Terrier was, and is, shaped by its original purpose in life” (Border Terriers, Frank and Jean Jackson).

[2] “Purebred dog breeds represent restricted genetic populations that have resulted from the way that such breeds have been developed... each new breed starts with a very limited gene pool... present day dog breeds represent distinct genetic populations with limited genetic variability within the breed... Unfortunately, the restrictive breeding patterns that have developed as part and parcel of the purebred dog scene have not been without collateral damage to all breeds. This is particularly true in the area of inherited disease... Increasingly, inherited diseases are imposing a serious burden on most, if not all, breeds of dog” (Dr Jeff Sampson, 2004, The Kennel Club).

“…the Kennel Club announced that from March 1st, 2009 it would no longer register the progeny of mother-to-son, father-to-daughter and brother-to-sister matings. These kinds of unions have traditionally allowed breeders to replicate champions – at the expense of genetic diversity. Banning such mating, then, is an important first step. But at Crufts on Thursday, I overhear Jeff Sampson, the Kennel Club's genetic adviser, tell one inquirer to the new Crufts Health Zone that the ban on incest matings is 'just a PR thing'” (Jemima Harrison).

[3] “All dog breed standards should be revised by a panel of vets and geneticists, with input from licensed breeders. Licensed dogs should conform to this standard” (Manda Scott, MA CertVA BVMS MRCVS).

“As general practitioners, we’re are often forced into a position where we must provide veterinary attentions necessary for these deformed, unhealthy and unfortunate animals to survive in minimum discomfort, but in so doing we help perpetuate and in some way validate the practice of pedigree dog breeding.

“Shouldn’t we, as a profession, make public the suffering that we see every day in our consult rooms as a result of thoughtless and selfish breeding practices based purely on ‘cosmetic’ merits at the cost of individual health?

“And shouldn’t the Royal College acknowledge that this is a real and growing problem, perhaps providing the Kennel Club with guidance on basic genetic matters – for instance, make it clear that sibling–sibling or parent–offspring mating is not sensible breeding policy?” (Nick Marsh BVSc MRCVS and Kerry Marsh BVSc MRCVS).

[4] Isn't that a daft name for a shop. Where else would our pets be? Pets At Somebody Else's Home? Pets at the Office? Pets at Sea?

[5] Fox-hunting is not yet banned in Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland.

 

 

 

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