Well this winter has sure been a nice one so far. Mild temperatures right up to the early part of January have kept the snow in the valley bottoms from building up too much and after a week or two of cold it is raining again here now at the end of January. I went out twice this week looking for cat tracks. The first day I got scooped as I saw where someone had killed a cat the day before then I found another set of tracks but someone had his dogs on them. This was exactly where I had treed a female last year and a couple years before and was probably the same girl. Hope he left her up a tree as she was pretty dependable. By the time I found a third set of tracks it was too late to do anything with them. They were the smallest tracks I have ever seen separate from a mother. The second day out I saw nothing but there will be other days.
Got another nice letter from Glenn Overstreet in which he enclosed a photo of his “Lil Girl” a slick coated Airedale of his breeding. He say’s
“Lil Girl is out of Cajun and his niece Boss Laydee. I got Boss Laydee from Barbara Burns of Tennessee who owned Cajun’s sister. They had three litters but only one slick in each litter. The first one I kept back but let Ron Stout have her at 15 months or so. She was everything he wanted to breed with. Sometimes opened on track and a real tree dog and hunter. She was bear killed along with the rest of his pack.
The second went to Tom Everman, a Veterinarian in S. Oregon, a male to replace another male from the first litter that got run over. Tom was real high on the first dog but said this slick was three times the dog in every way. He is available for stud.
The third is Lil girl. She like all the rest of this cross that I have heard from is a real tree dog. She hunts with the hounds and Curs and stays on a mean bear. I believe these redline Airedales are superior and go back closer to the original”
Thanks for the letter Glenn and I will enclose the picture of Lil Girl. The captions on the photos I submitted for the January column got all screwed up in printing so I apologize if anyone was wondering what the heck the captions were supposed to mean.
I got this update via email from Wayne Waggoner
“Enclosed is a picture of a day pheasant hunting ( in the wild, not a shooting preserve) with Sandhill Cove's McCain (Big Mac) and a buddy of mine, Sammy. We got these two roosters and missed two. It was pretty rough hunting in the multiflora rose, but Big Mac, made life a lot easier by diving into the multiflora rose and flushing. I really think that he thought they were ground varmints. I've always hunted with German Shorthaired Pointers or English Pointers or Setters. Big Mac did quite a remarkable job compared to the bird hunting standards I grew up under.(wing & shot rules). I really don't think that the bird dogs could do as well of an all round job as he does with what we exposed this dog too!
Henry Johnson, Keith Waggoner (my nephew) and myself have taken on bringing back the Irish Terrier breed, just like Henry Johnson has helped do with the Airedales. What a chore trying to get those Irish owner's to sell us a puppy when they knew we were going to hunt them like they were originally bred to do. We finally have our first litter on the ground. Amber gave us a fine litter of seven puppies, four of which have already been placed with hunting people. One with our buddy Mike Fordyce in Wyoming, one with Gary Strader in Montana, he thinks it will be the perfect size to hunt coyotes, as a decoy dog. He thinks the some of the western coyotes were a little intimidated with size of the Airedale, Henryetta. We will try to keep you informed as to the difference of the two breeds, the Irish Terrier and the Airedale. So far the Irish are a little quicker on the game at the kill and a little faster on speed , but the size comes into play on the larger quarry as to bully strength the Airedale has it over on them. The Irish can get into smaller holes and tighter areas to keep the quarry at bay or extract it . We really want to get these puppies placed with hunting persons all over the Continent and all kinds of farm and hunting challenges.
Just talked to Mike Fordyce out in Wyoming, we told you about last year. After a bobcat hunt his Airedale, Clown (Fergie / McCain) bred his hound female (Pearl) and the one male that survived was given to a lion hunting home. At thirteen months old the lion hunter says he is the smartest lion dog that he has had. In fact he has just turned down $5,000 for him that another hunter offered him for the dog. Mike says that he has gotten two or three other lion hunter calling and wanting to breed their hound bitches to Clown! They feel he is one of the most intelligent lion dog ever. The hound gave a good tracking nose and stamina, and Clown input brains and lots of guts at the bay.
We have not gotten a chance to hunt Henrietta (Fergie / Grit) yet. We have not had too much snow yet although last weekend when it had snowed, Keith and I got to go out and we found tracks to a pack of coyotes and at least two or three pairs of coyotes. It seems that they have started to pair up already. Now we will start on coyotes.”
Thanks for the update Wayne. I recently read A. F Hochwalt’s 1921 book “The Airedale for Work and Show”. It was recommended to me by Richard Dwyer who posted this excerpt on the Working Airedale Terrier Board which by the way no longer exists.
”There are some strains, unquestionably, that are better qualified to make better working dogs than others, but it is surprising how many strains are in existence today whose ancestors have had no work for generations, and yet puppies from such strains, if started properly, will come to their own. As I stated on various occasions, so many breeders prefer the honors of the bench show to making working dogs out of their dogs, because of the very natural fear that this rough-and tumble work of hunting may mar their chances for showing, and particularly do they hesitate in placing their dogs in packs that are used on big game as there is a likelihood that they may be killed or if not that at least maimed to such extent that their usefulness as show specimens might be forever ruined. One can not cavil at this, however, for if an owner obtains more pleasure in showing than working his dogs, then by all means let him bring up his terriers for the purpose he intends to use them, but it is because so many families have not been worked for generations, that the distinction arose between the working and the show Airedale.
Another contaminant feature is that many of the show strains have been bred for show points to such extent, that while certain improvements in so called quality have been made, these were secured through loss of stamina, size, bone, substance, and above all, gameness, that has much to do with the bad name some Airedales have received.
Not long ago a man told me with a party of friends, was going on a big game hunt in the far Northwest and that he was taking with him 4 Airedales that he had recently purchased." Fine specimens," he assured me, "all of their ancestry were winners." " But have these dogs you are taking with you had any experience?" I inquired. The man looked at me in blank amazement. " I thought," he said, "That all Airedales would fight and that they take to big game hunting as a natural thing." " I fear that you will be disappointed in your dogs," I replied, "but perhaps if you go slowly, they may learn through sheer necessity." Months afterward this same man assured me that as a big game dog was a decided failure, that he left his dogs in the Northwest as he did not think them worth the price of carfare to bring home. Such experience are to be expected, but they ere frequently encountered.
The Airedale has won a reputation for being an all around dog, game to death and suitable to be used anywhere. Because of this impression, many sportsmen are thus misleading by thinking that as long as wherever he is used, experience or no experience. One would not expect the beagle to perform his natural mission in life without training, nor would one expect a beagle or the foxhound to prove satisfactory when being taken out of the kennel for the first time and put into the field; never the less there are numerous people who imagine the Airedale should do everything any other dog can do without a days experience or training.
While, as I have said, there are many dogs of the breed which will make good, even if descended from stock which has had no practical work for generations, I would advise the sportsman looking for a really useful dog to select one from a family known to be practical dogs, which does not necessarily mean he must be an ungainly brute. There are any number of Airedales with show points which are also good working dogs, even though perhaps some of these strains lack the "quality appearance" that is the shibboleth of present day bench show breeders. Rather sacrifice some of this so -called quality substance, bone, gameness, and above all intelligence.
For a working Airedale size should always be given consideration. I do not mean that it is necessary to select great, massive animals weighing eighty pounds or more, for such specimens are not only ungainly, but lack the shiftiness, which bear or mountain lion fighting is sometimes as essential as extraordinary size. Many of the Western Airedale breeders who use their dogs in the Rockies have some large specimens, but they are gradually coming to the point where they realize that a dog weighing between fifty and sixty pounds will answer all purposes provided they have the heart, the courage, and the alertness that are necessary. Personally for an all around dog I prefer the males to run from 45 to 50 pounds and females slightly less. One bitch I saw in one of the Southern packs recently, weighed about 40 pounds, but she was the gamest of the game and would attack so fearlessly that sometimes it was her undoing.
While on the question of gameness, it is not out of place to digress here for a moment. gameness and courage are decidedly different qualities from reckless impetuosity. Frequently one finds that when an Airedale is game, he is to a fault, and when he is timid, he is so to exaggeration, and yet it is often noted that many Airedales are very timid as puppies, but which with time and experience become the best kind of dogs. They discover their own powers, and they lack the ferocious, daredevil recklessness they will eventually make the best big game fighters, for they are more cautious.”
Thanks for taking the time to type that out Richard.
Both Richard and Bob McClellan remarked how the division between work and show lines existed even back then when the breed was just in it’s youth.
I got a phone call from John Tessier of Rhode Island. We talked Airedales for quite a bit and I was surprised at how familiar he was with my neck of the woods. He had spent some time up here and his ex girlfriend was from this area. He told me a couple of stories of his old Airedale Shamus Borden Mcduff who he no longer has. John will probably be looking for an Airedale sometime in the future and I gave him Al Kranbuhl’s name, as Al is pretty close to him.
I went out before Christmas to a place that isn’t far from home and was pleased to find that the road had been plowed. There is a little activity going on up a side road and it was drivable so I headed up. This road goes up into some beautiful country but it is more beautiful in the spring or summer then in the winter when every kilometer takes you up into deeper snow. At the thirteen kilometer mark I hit a pretty good lion track. He was working the road for a bit then headed up into some steep rocky ground where I figured he would bed down. I started out on the track and cursed myself for not bringing skis or snowshoes. Down in the valley the snow was only about 1/2 meter deep but up here it was over my waist with no base. The lion got on to a deer or goat track and proceeded to follow that so that gave some relief what with that critter, a cat and some dogs going before me the trail wasn’t as bad going. Don’t know how those cats survive in the high country in the winter as the food animals are few and far between. I guess when they do get on a track in the deep snow the deer are a lot easier to bring down.
I caught up to the dogs in under an hour and they were milling about looking somewhat confused but they straightened out whatever had them messed up and carried on. I carried on for a while more and was taking a break as I was getting pretty beat when I heard treeing not too far away. I got to the tree and looked up and was quite surprised to see a wolverine climbing higher up into the branches of a big fir. I guess he had come onto the trail of the cat and was following along hoping to scrounge a meal at the kill if the cat made one. I guess where he hit the trail is where the dogs got confused. I have seen tracks but have never seen a wolverine in the wild. They really do have a nasty look about them but are not very large.
I doubt I could have made a shot with my bow as he was quite high up but for some reason had brought a 22 along, something I have never done before. To get a shot though I had to climb a neighboring tree and shoot across. I got him exactly between the eyes and he died immediately. Unfortunately it was so immediate he didn’t even come out. So down I come and up his tree. The only thing is that some of the branches were dead and rather brittle. After a few broke out from beneath me and my freezing hands could barely grip the limbs I plumb chickened out and came down. What a pickle. The tree was huge so going to get an axe was pointless. The only alternative would be to go back, get a chainsaw and drag it all the way up through deep snow and at this point it was snowing so even getting back up the road was questionable if the plow didn’t return. I decided to walk out the cat track a bit more and return in a while. Maybe Gulo would relax or stiffen and come out.
Well when I came back he was still up there.
The alternatives were poor so I bit the bullet and went back up the tree. I was a little warmer at this point and made it up and back down without mishap but wondered if maybe I was getting a bit old for this kind of stuff. I think a young hunting partner is in order. That boy of mine had better hurry and grow up.
On closer inspection the wolverine was a male, weighed in at about 30 lbs at 45 inches. and was a foul smelling creature. Not as bad as a skunk but not very pleasant either. Don’t know how the dogs could stand chomping on him like they were. I also don’t know how a dog would do one on one with one of these beasts. They have very powerful neck and shoulder muscles and very formidable front claws. Similar to a bears except thinner and longer, much longer than a bobcats. I will enclose a photo or two.
Going back to the vaults now for this little taste of spring from Bob McClellans “Back Country Ramblings”. This is transcribed from a tape dated 1996-97
“Well, this season is starting out pretty much the way I predicted it would. The snow is gone from the mountains except for the very highest country. The main problem is access. A lot of the roads to the trailheads are washed out, including some of the major trailheads here in the wilderness area. Which of course makes the places that are accessible all the more crowded. The tourists stop at the Forest Service on their way in and find out that their major destination points are still closed to the public, the roads haven’t been repaired yet. So the Forest Service directs them to the places that are open and there are an awful lot of back packers in there.
We did go up and camp at a trailhead about a week or so ago, a friend and I, and there was just a steady stream of backpackers up and down the trail there. We were the only horse people there at the trailhead and using the corrals but there was just a steady stream of backpackers in and out of that country.
So anyway I’m at home here for a few days and I talked to a neighbor of mine and he said he thought that a road leading to one of my little hideaway spots has been repaired. I tried to get up there earlier and it was washed out down low. It’s several miles on up the mountain to the trailhead so I hadn’t bothered with it. Anyway, my neighbor told me that road had been fixed, he thought. So a couple of days ago I just got in the pickup and drove up there. I like to check out some of these roads with just a pickup before I pull a horse trailer up there and find out I’m in trouble.
So anyway I drove up and, yeah, they had had a cat up there and fixed that washout. They’d run a grader on up the road to the trailhead and knocked some of the major rock out of the road. It was still pretty rough but it was passable, at least with a small horse trailer, all the way to the trailhead. I wouldn’t want to attempt to take a big stock trailer up there. You just couldn’t make it. But with just a small single or two horse trailer, yeah, you can make it all the way up to the trailhead.
So I got up there and there was one pickup parked there, which I was surprised to find, and the trail had been worked on. You could obviously see there had been a trail crew up there. Well, with all the major damage done to the main trails in this country I was kind of surprised to see that they had already worked on this trail a little bit, spent the time and trouble on it. Yeah, there’d been a trail crew up there. And I thought I recognized that pickup. Like I say, this is one of my little hideaway spots. There’s occasionally a few local people go in there but that’s about it. You don’t find any tourist traffic in there. But apparently, anyway, somebody was up there at the lake.
Well the next day I hitched up my little one horse trailer. Didn’t need a packhorse for this and didn’t really feel like dragging her up that mountain. So I just left her at home and just took my saddle horse and just took two dogs. I took Punk (terrier x shepherd cross) and Kelly (Airedale). Still having trouble with Casey (Airedale) with that abscess on his side. Had it operated on here about a week and a half ago. And he’s all wrapped up like a sore thumb now, got a big bandage all around him. So I left him home and I sure hope this is the end of that trouble.
So, anyway, I drove on up there to the trailhead again and that pickup was gone. So I had the whole country to myself up there. So I saddled the little pony, you know, and we rode on in there. It’s not too far up that trail, it’s only about three miles, but it’s a steep uphill go all the way. You kinda got to want to go to this lake, you know. It’s not one that everybody goes to.
I had a pretty uneventful ride in there as far as wildlife goes. I didn’t see any sign, didn’t see any critters, outside of maybe a chipmunk or two, and the dogs didn’t run anything. So we just had a pretty nice ride in there. I enjoy riding in that country all the time. I just never get tired of it.
So I got up there to the lake and tied my horse up, rigged up a fishing rod, went over there and I started fishing with power bait, rigged up the bait rig, fishing on the bottom. And I sat there and watched it for, oh, about a half an hour and didn’t get a bite. So, I thought, ‘Oh, boy, it’s gonna be one of these kind of days.’
So I did see a golden eagle, a young, immature golden eagle, he still had some white under the wings. He come drifting in and circled the lake a couple of times and then drifted back off again. And I’ve noticed here in the last several years all our big fish eating birds like that, your golden eagle, your bald eagle, osprey, they’ve all come back real good in this country. I see ‘em up there at all the lakes. You know, oh, 15 or 20 years ago it was kinda rare to see one. You know, the DDT had affected them so bad and everything and they were getting pretty scarce in this country. But they’ve made a good, strong comeback. It’s not unusual to see them at all any more. In fact, it’ kinda unusual now if I don’t see one back in there.
But anyway I got up and walked over to my saddlebags, you know, and got my lunch out and came back down there where my rod was and pulled in my line and checked my bait, switched colors, threw it back out there again, and doggone just as I sat down to eat my lunch I got a bite. Doggone, switching colored bait I guess was the ticket, because all of a sudden they wouldn’t leave me alone long enough to eat my lunch. It didn’t take very long at all and I had me a pretty nice string of fish. I had a limit of rainbows and the smallest one there was about 11 inches and the biggest about 12 1/2 inches, so a pretty nice little string of fish.
So I went ahead and sat there and ate my lunch and fooled around a little bit and thunderheads begin to build up and I thought it might be a good time to ease on back down the trail. So I got on the pony and had an uneventful ride back down again. The dogs didn’t run anything, didn’t see anything exceptional. And got on back down to the trailhead. Just a real, nice, easy, enjoyable type of day. I spend quite a few of them out there in the hills like that.
Well, it’s forecast now a cold front coming in and a pretty good chance of rain here for the next couple of days. Not just showers but general rain. So I imagine I’ll stick around home here for a couple of days and see if I can’t get a few chores done. And as soon as it clears up I’ll pick me another spot and go for it.”
If that doesn’t get you itching for the ice to come off the lakes I don’t know what will. Well that’s it! Talk to you in a couple months.
The quote of the month submitted by Henry S Johnson Jr. is - "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." (Edward R. Murrow).
As Henry always said: “ Until next month, let me hear from you Airedale people and don’t forget to put your arms around those black and tan dogs with the beards and the moustaches and talk to them. They are people dogs and family members.
Respectfully submitted, Clint Stubbe, Northern Corresponding Secretary for the Working Airedale Terrier Association. No rules, regulations, officers, dues or formal affiliations. It’s more a state of mind.