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To: AnAmericanMother

I don’t hunt and both are from show lines rather than hunting lines. Neither have the drive to be a great hunting dog or for that matter a great obedience/protection dog, but they make great family dogs which is what I wanted. The Airedale is a great trail dog. He stays close and if ahead of me and we come to a fork in the trail I can point to the trail I want to go on and he automatically takes it. While he doesn’t have a really high drive like your Psycho Ruby if the right prey presents itself he will go after it. Last time it was a bobcat. That was scary but he treed it and lost interest. (as I said his prey drive isn’t that high). I was lucky even though he’s 90 pounds I’d have put my money on the bobcat even though he looked to weigh about 25-30 pounds. I’d have had to pack the wounded dog out of the mountains to a vet and that wouldn’t have been fun. My first Airedale had much higher drive. While she wasn’t out of control or anything you she could be a handful and required you to be the leader at all times. If you weren’t she’d step in and try to take leadership (nothing really overtly aggressive but if you recognize dog behavior you knew what she was doing.)

If I were a hunter I’d have gotten my Airedale from one of the breeders who specialize in hunting Airedales. The ones I know who selling Airedales bred for hunting won’t even sell you a puppy unless they are satisfied you can handle what you’re getting and can work the dog.

I live in Southern California and just found a neat place to take the dogs which as a hunter you’d love. The Prado Dam Dog Park in Chino. It’s 538 acres of upland hunting fields and about 30 duck ponds. All maintained for the purposes of training your hunting dogs. They even sell live birds for your dogs to point at (had quail last time I was there)and you can use weapons to train the dogs for the sound of firearms (mostly use blanks except under very controlled conditions.). The Airedale and Cairn had a ball. Only problem I had is the Airedale who has long fur right now came home covered in clover burrs and some smaller stickers. Nothing stuck to the Cairn who had just been stripped. With a lab the only place you’d have a problem is between the pads, but where ever you are you have to deal with that as well.

I recommend two books to people who are getting a new dog or seem to have some problems in handling their dogs. The first is: The Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell. The other is On Talking Terms with Dogs:Calming Signals by Turid Rugaas. Both are reading by any dog owner but they really help new owners or people who just don’t understand their dogs. Turid’s website btw: http://www.canis.no/rugaas/ The Q&A section is worth looking at.


38 posted on 10/21/2011 12:34:36 PM PDT by airedale
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To: airedale

A friend of mine shows airedales and has tried for years to get me to get one, but I just cannot commit to the grooming. But man are they cool dogs. I love hers. And the most adorable puppies. Altho the prey drive is something else. Love em tho.


73 posted on 10/23/2011 4:23:56 PM PDT by brytlea (An ounce of chocolate is worth a pound of cure)
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