Page 294 - ShowSight - September 2019

The Terrier’s Temperament BY RICHARD REYNOLDS continued
Part of the success of our terriers hunting the streets of New York is their interaction with passersby.
Hunting terriers are not aggressive toward dog or human and we prove it every day. (Of course we don’t tell them where that mouth has been).
are culled from the hunt. Many dogs with prior issues become more stable and tracta- ble with a bit of hunting (or even Earthdog) under their belt.
Several years ago I was asked to help write the breed standard for Spanish Water Dogs. Those that owned and bred the rela- tively small population of foundation stock
perceived a problem with over protection and aggression. To find the right approach we went to the breeders in the Belgian breeds who have made good temperaments their goal. They’ve done this by recogniz- ing the problem in certain bloodlines and addressing that problem by public educa- tion and selective breeding. No dog should be inherently aggressive. Your own issues may be genetic, acquired, or a combination thereof. Conscientious breeding will even- tually solve the problem.
Bedlingtons do have a reputation for being a bit snarkey. My next door neigh- bor had a Bedlington that was, by any reasonable standard, mean as the dickens. Neither man nor beast was safe from his jaws. (Except me. I guess kindred spirits get along.) The dog came from a very repu- table breeder. It was a liver dog and a copper toxicosis carrier. The owners loved the dog, perhaps to a fault. I suspect there was little outside socialization as a puppy and aside from four very long walks each day he led a pretty sheltered existence. A genetic pre- disposition to aggression combined with acquired social issues is a recipe to avoid. I’ve always felt that temperament problems are at least 50% (or more) acquired and much less a result of breeding, but there are undeniably temperament issues more preva- lent in some lines.
The message here is a plea that you, as breeders, do as others have done and
recognize and deal with temperament prob- lems within your bloodlines. Blaming those issues on the evil hunting gene of yore is not only shirking your responsibilities, it displays a total lack of understanding of the instinct, temperament and conforma- tion required for hunting, exact purpose for which your chosen breed was created.
Not everyone is able to go hunting to learn the ins and outs of performance as well as identify the anatomical priorities in the conformation of the breed. Bedling- tons are blessed with one of the best breed standards in existence, but it’s only a blue print. As a breeder, you can have twenty years of experience, or you can have one year of experience 20 times. Temperament issues are real and are a fault. They are not the result of a Terrier bred to hunt, in fact a dog with ANY temperament issues cannot be hunted.
There are several seminars available on structural priorities and hunting Terriers. The published articles are endless. If you learn what goes into a hunt, you will have a leg up in understanding the history of the breed and its genetic building blocks. To get the real story, I will be happy to take any Bedlington breeder or owner on a real life Terrier hunting trip as a participant or merely as an observer in order that everyone is on the same page with respect to the voca- tion of the Bedlington Terrier. Just let me know when you are coming!
292 • ShowSight Magazine, SepteMber 2019