Irish Terriers

[carolmac 0]

They havent been bred to work earths I agree but yes working rat is working thats what they were bred for originally.You obviouslt know nothing about them so why bother replying.I sold a pup a couple of years ago to a guy from California to work Mountain Lion and he tells me its doing the business for him you telling me that isnt work Dave

i misunderstood you,when you asked about work i thought you meant the work that the good lines of wheatens and glens excelled at and irish terriers and kerry blues failed miserably at.what does "working" mountain lion involve?also hunting rabbits and rats is not working,i would never call a dog like this a working terrier and anybody who does must know nothing of the true working terrier.you say i know nothing about them,well i have kept both wheatens and glens and my working dogs have glen and wheaten in the lines and i know that the irish terrier and kerry blue were never up to much,maybe catching a few rats is all they are comfortable with.atb.

He tells me that the mountain lion needs to be flushed from its den or were ever its lying up this is not easy as they are often reluctant to move and will need to be flushed from cover or a small cave in rocks and it takes a determined dog to force them out (he has tried airdales but found them too soft to stay to the task) they are then shot or preferably treed were they are dispatched.This is what he tells me I havent seen it myself but I have no reason to disbelieve him as he says when the time comes he will be replacing this dog with another Irish as they are in his opinion the best for this type of work.

[ciaranmcman 23]

The Irish was probably never a breed that specialised in one job. Like most Irish breeds it was probably a jack 'o all trades, master of none.

But before the saluki cross came along a lot of the top coursing men in Ireland liked the Irish terrier cross as a coursing dog and some of these dogs made names for themselves and could kill hares. The Saluki then put that cross out of the picture.

yea ther a good coursing cross good hard feet