dmd anyone with a decent terrier this time of the year will be working it as you know, but still no harm to get in early and have one lined up for next year.
My first priority with a young mad keen dog is show them as many empty earths as possible before it sees game and after the first time it enters then another 20 more empty ones that sorts any f***ing about in holes, in their first season they might try 100 empty ones and only 6-7 holding, it works for my stuff anyway.
Seen it a few times when a dog had gone to round when rabbits in the area, terrier is to ground f***ing around, then he says I can't understand why it's doing that, then dog is to blame.
That's the way it should be downsouth you could cover double the ground with terriers that work that way, all my pups are out at 12 weeks running fields and forests running over empty earths etc and when they are at an age to enter its a quick sniff and they know straight away, I can never doubt them that way.
At the end of the day a good white dog is as good as any black/choc/red dog there's a certain level that can be reached by a working terrier, it's what level you want them to reach. My level may be different to others.
This is just my opinion , but I think if it wasn't for the bull added into terriers in the past there would be no patterdales (choc/black), they hid the fact bull was added back then as they do now, some fellas get a bit too protective over their stuff.