Page 27 - ShowSight Presents - The Airedale Terrier
P. 27
Airedales are considered medium main- tenance as far as grooming is concerned. With the wire coat they don’t mat and the coat doesn’t grow as fast as a soft coated dog. They should be brushed once a week especially the legs and face and clipped 3 to 4 times a year. Since the breed is not a hot weather dog, being they are from a moderate climate in England, keeping them in short coat in the summer is a must. Many people let them go wooly in the winter since the breed loves to play out- doors in the cold and snowy weather.
Airedales are clowns and do very funny things so a requirement of the owner is a sense of humor. This breed is also very intelligent therefore he is a bit of a challenge to train. An Airedale must have basic obedience training or they can become very difficult to live with. Train- ing an Airedale should be fun and reward- ing to get the best results. The Airedale is very willing to work for you if they under- stand what is asked of them and can be a great asset to the family. Negative and hard correction type training will not work well on this breed.
There are so many things you can do as activities with your Airedale. Bred to hunt and being good in the water makes hunt- ing a great activity for the breed. Aire- dales are now allowed to get hunt titles with AKC Spaniel tests. There are many other competitive activities through AKC such as agility, obedience, conformation and lure coursing. There are many other sports like barn hunting, dock diving, and frisbee competition.
Hunting is a natual ability of the breed, so training them to participate in hunt trials is a wonderful way to do something with what this breed was bred for. There are Spaniel trials all over the country and there are several groups that do hunting activi- ties with the Airedale. One is the Hunting Working Airedale Group (http://hunting- workingairedales.com) and the other is the Airedale Terrier Club of America Hunting and Field committee (www.airedale.org).
Agility is not for everyone or every dog but many Airedales do quite well at it. It is also a way to keep you and your dog in shape and to have a well trained Aire- dale. It is a lot of fun running a course
with your dog going over, through and on to all kinds of obstacles. Training takes time but it’s a great way to become a team with your dog. It is also a great activity to meet many people that are involved with this exciting dog sport. There are sev- eral groups in the country that involved in agility. The American Kennel Club (http://www.akc.org/dog_shows_tri- als/agility/index.cfm) is one and United States Dog Agility Association is another (http://www.usdaa.com/).
Competitive obedience is one where you go beyond the basic obedience and actually compete with your dog in obedience exer- cises. AKC holds trials in conjunction with dog shows all over the country. Rally obedi- ence is another type of obedience compe- tition but is not as difficult as the regular obedience competition. It is a more relaxed environment. You walk a course, read signs at numbered stations and perform the obe- dience exercise at that sign. Lure coursing is a sport that Sight hounds have been doing for years and now the AKC has opened it up to all breeds. It is where the dog chases a lure on a pulley system around a field for
