Airedale Terrier

The breed took shape along the River Aire in the West Riding of Yorkshire around the 1850s and 1860s. Working men in the mill towns between Leeds and Bradford crossed the old English black and tan terrier with the Otterhound, wanting a terrier with more size, a better nose and the confidence to swim. The result was known first as the Waterside or Bingley Terrier, and was renamed the Airedale Terrier at a show in the 1870s. The Kennel Club recognised the breed in 1886.

The Airedale's reputation as an all-purpose working dog spread quickly. Police forces in Britain and Germany trialled the breed at the turn of the twentieth century, and during the First World War Airedales carried messages and worked as casualty dogs for the Red Cross, which made them famous well beyond the terrier world. Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Richardson, who ran the British War Dog School, relied heavily on them.

In the United States the breed arrived in the 1880s and became one of the most popular dogs in the country in the 1920s. The Oorang Kennels of Ohio bred an oversized strain and promoted it through a travelling football team, which pushed numbers up sharply for a decade. The Airedale is far less common now than it was then, but the standard has stayed close to the original working dog.

Males stand about 23 inches at the shoulder and females a little less, with weight generally in the forties to low fifties of pounds. The outline is square and upstanding: a long flat skull with a strong muzzle of about the same length, small V-shaped folded ears, a deep chest that is not especially wide, and straight, heavily boned legs. The tail is carried gaily and, where docking is not practised, is left natural.

The coat is the breed's signature, hard, dense and wiry with a bend or crinkle to the hairs, lying close over a shorter soft undercoat. The classic colouring is a black or dark grizzle saddle running over the back and up the sides of the neck, with rich tan on the head, ears, legs and underparts. A few white hairs on the chest are seen and permitted. The whiskered muzzle and the dark, small, keen eye give the breed its characteristic expression.

Airedales are confident and outgoing rather than nervy. At home they are playful and physically demonstrative with their own family, often keeping a puppyish sense of humour into middle age. They are typically steady with children they have grown up with, though a bouncing adolescent Airedale is a lot of dog for a small child to absorb.

The terrier core shows in independence and persistence. This is a breed that was expected to make decisions alone at a riverbank, so an Airedale who has decided something is worth doing will keep at it. He is not a dog who obeys because obeying is pleasant; he obeys because you have made it worth his while and have been consistent about it.

With strangers the Airedale is reserved but rarely hysterical, and he is a genuinely good natural watchdog: alert, quick to announce a visitor, imposing enough to make a caller pause. Prey drive is high and same-sex dog tolerance can be poor, especially between males, so early and continued socialisation matters. Cats and small pets need careful, realistic management.

The original job was mixed hunting along water: rats, otter and anything else that moved on a Yorkshire riverbank, with enough size to be useful on larger quarry. In North America Airedales were later used on big game and are still worked occasionally on bear and boar by hunters who value their courage and their willingness to work rough country.

Today most Airedales are family dogs, but the breed still does well at work that rewards a thinking, physical dog: obedience and rally, agility, tracking and scent work, carting, and hunting tests run by the parent clubs. They also make solid property dogs on smallholdings. Whatever the outlet, they need one, because an under-employed Airedale will invent a job that involves digging, chewing or shouting.