[Terriermon]

Does anyone here hunt with terriers or have any experience? I'm just curious as this is primarily a N. American forum it seems and it seems to be a European thing. I don't think it is legal in Canada but I'm not sure. Earthdog trials? Barn hunts? I wanna hear about it! Anything that lets high-drive terriers satisfy themselves!

Anyone have jagd, patterdale, or fell terriers here?

 

[ChessaQ]

I have a JRT mix, and she has the strongest hunting drive I've ever seen. We've done some barn hunts and she's amazing. I live on a farm so she hunts constantly. We've also done some lure coursing, of course that's not actually hunting, but uses her prey drive and she loves it.

 

[jagger]

Older thread I know but...

Our minpin seemed to become a whole dog once we started letting him hunt, prey drive is strong. Started off a couple of years ago when offleash at a local park. There were a bunch of straw bales in a row, didn't take him long to catch on when I started lifting the bales, he was under it sniffing like crazy. First mouse he found was dead before I realized he had one - chomp, shake, done. Now he really looks forward to our outings knowing that he can go on the hunt. I'll take him through the woods, lift logs and such, doubt there's any mice around but it's the thrill of the hunt.

He hasn't figured out how to catch gophers or squirrels yet, and I really don't want him to. I know I could pair him up with a dog that could show him how but... There's a large field here with what seems like thousands of gophers, he runs from hole to hole, using his teeth to tear and dig cause he knows one is down there. He doesn't get flustered or upset when he fails to make a kill, just loves it. The physical and mental exercise really beats him out...

 

[SeaBreezy]

The neighboring barn next to ours has at least 20 fox terriers that they use for fox hunting. It's more of a sport than an actual hunt, as they don't kill the fox, just chase it. At least that's my understanding of it.

And man, those are some of the most well trained dogs I've seen. I sometimes see the guy walking them down the road, all of them out in front in a giant, organized pack while he walks behind just carrying a lunge whip for guidance.

 

[Foxhunter]

I have, until recently, always had terriers for hunting. These have always been Border Terriers, great little dogs.

Mine all had working certificates, meaning that they would go to ground and hold a fox in there. Biggest downfall of this is that they will go to ground even if you don't want them to.

Hunting rules have changed in the UK so certification for working terriers is not allowed.

There was a 'rat pack' locally which was great fun, people turned up with theor terriers to rat hunt on farms and commercial chicken farms. Rats were flushed out with either ferrets or smoke and away the terriers would go.

One chicken place had a stream which flowed into a large pond, the JRs would kill rats as they ran but many rats went into the stream amd down to the pond, my and another Border Terrier, would go down the stream after them and actually kill the rats as they arrived at the pond.

Many tales about the terrors, sorry, terriers!

 

[akodo1]

What I see, there are just some differences in the US vs UK. In the UK there seem to be rabbit warrens were people use ferrets and dogs. I've never seen a rabbit warren in the USA.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and those guys were all into packs of hounds for hunting foxes and had terriers to get them out of their dens, but this faded greatly, and honestly as the wilderness got tamed the immigrants were Norwegian, Swede, German, etc. so foxing was just not as integrated into our culture, both hound and terrier. Many foxhounds morphed into coonhounds. Or foxing terriers morphed into rat terriers or feists.

Are you familiar with Feists? Fiest came about from blending traditional terriers and hounds. It's a 'cousin' of the rat terrier, and both types have influenced eachother. These are dogs that are fairly generalist hunters that appear quite terrierlike except often with longer legs. They are used singlely or in pairs or in packs from everything to treeing mountain lion and bear to ratting, but mostly were developed for squirrel hunting.

There are still those who hunt foxes with hounds and terriers. ALSO There are still those who send small terriers into dens and dig them out as necessary, however, most 'terrierwork' in the USA is rat terriers above ground going after rats, and secondly feist type work.