Lie Down With Dogs, Get Up With Fleas

Some 17 months ago, I wrote a piece entitled Honey Pots and Trolls in the Land of Eire in which I noted that some gas bag in Ireland had gotten on the boards to bash a piece I had written two years earlier about the old Irish "strong dog" tests and the potted histories that you commonly find for all Kennel Club dogs, including the Glen of Imaal terrier.

This guy wanted to talk about badgers, and badger-bating trials, and what great badger dogs they had in Ireland.

Eh? I was a bit confused, as this fellow seemed detached from any logical mooring.

He had, of course, not so much as dropped me a line.

I suspected he did not want to provide a real name and a real email address.

As I wrote at the time:

A two-year old post? Did someone just get their first dog, or did they just get their first computer?

No mind.

Now here's the funny thing about this kerfuffle -- the "strong dog" tests once given by the Irish Kennel Club have not been done since 1968!

And when they were given, they weren't much of a test of a working dog were they? The Teastas Mor lasted for all of 5-minutes.

Five minutes? Five minutes.

In this Kennel Club test the dog was not required to find the quarry at all, and if the terrier bayed it was summarily disqualified.

Since the Kennel Club rules for this "test" were knitted up prior to the invention of locator collars, one has to wonder how the dog was supposed to be found underground. Telepathy? Dowsing rod?

But of course the dog did not need to be located, did it? The Teastas Mor was nothing more than a timed badger-baiting trial in a short artificial earth made to look "natural."

So what was this poster on about, I wondered?

I had an idea.

Well, it could be a simple matter of another Internet Troll on the boards. Such people are common enough, and I have written about them before.

But perhaps in this case it is something else. Think about it -- a person with an anonymous name shows up less than a year ago on a working terrier board, and now he wants to talk about badger baiting in a country where that practice is quite illegal?

Hmmmm. Sounds like a honey pot operation to me.

What's a honey pot? A honey pot is an old trick. You put down bait (preferably under cover of dark) and then stand back and shoot anything that comes in to feed on it.

I have written before about how these Internet bulletin boards might be a problem in this regard, and more people should probably be aware of how these honey pot schemes work if they want to stand clear of real trouble themselves, especially in the U.K.

In the old days, law enforcement "honey pots" were store-front fencing operations manned by the police, or a buy-and-bust drug corners where undercover cops replaced the local dealers which had been rounded up a half hour before.

Nowdays, thanks to the Internet, cops never have to leave their chair to make a bust -- they just go online to find the folks they want to arrest. Whether they are looking for wildlife poachers or illegal aliens, terrorists or pedophiles, neo-Nazis or stolen property, the Internet is the new hunting ground for law enforcement.

Are wildlife officials and animal rights lunatics using the Internet this way?

Believe it. It has been tried on me (though I do nothing illegal with my dogs), and it has been tried on others.

Right now the Roller Pigeon community is in a bit of a pinch and a bulletin board had to be closed down for a week so that it could be scrubbed of all mention of hawk and falcon killing. Falconers have similarly been nailed for illegal bird sales overseas.

Heads up and fair warning. Those in the U.K. who ignore this caution can go to page 30 of the June issue of Earth Dog-Running Dog magazine to find the telephone number of the Hunting Lawyer they may soon need. Those who want to see what the working terriers of Ireland actually look like, however, can go to page 29 of that same magazine. A little irony there, eh?

Well, of course, it turned out I was as right as rain.

Just six weeks later, a major bust went down in Ireland -- a fact I noted in a post entitled As Predicted: Fools Get Stung at Irish Honey Pot. And behind this bust was some bald-headed poseur showing up at the dog shows, and even trading dogs.

Of course, anyone with a brain and a sense of smell could have sensed this was coming.

You did not need to be a dyed-in-the-wool backwoodsman to see the sign. As I wrote:

The spoor was obvious to me, and so too was the scent. When you see such things, just sit down and keep quiet -- the game will reveal itself in time.

The funny thing is that genuine digging folks know the score, and have nothing to fear. We aren't going out to bait animals, we are going out to hunt.

And we sure as hell aren't using turnspit dogs or fighting dogs to get the job done, are we?

We are using terriers, yes, but the terriers used in Ireland to hunt are the same as those used all over -- Jack Russells, Patterdales, Fells and (perhaps) a few Borders. There is no shame or artifice in the world of true working terriers who are being worked by folks who actually know what they are doing.

And the job being done is not complex, is it? It's to locate and terminate the quarry, as quickly and painlessly as possible, and to shepherd the safety of the terrier so it can be used again next week.

So what's the latest news?

Well, it comes to me via way of an email which directed me back to the same before-mentioned bulletin-board where the folks there are all atwitter again because there have been more raids in Ireland. More are supposedly in the works for "known blood sports enthusiasts in Ireland, and as far afield as France and the USA."

Eh? Come again?

I am no expert on French law, but I am quit certain that hunting badger is legal in France, and I know for a fact that it is legal in most of the U.S.A. where badger are actually found.

So there will no arrests, as no laws have been broken -- that is just fanciful bunk cocked up by an ignorant press corps trying to sensationalize things as much as possible.

As for "baiting," I know no one who does that. Not a one.

But then, I do not claim to know everyone lurking on the margins of the world of working terriers, even in this country.

I have noted in the past that there are a few wanna-be pit-dog fighters about, but I will have nothing to do with them, and neither will anyone else with an ounce of brain or a real interest in working terriers.

These knuckle-draggers are to true working terriers what jack-lighting deer poachers are to real hunters -- an outrage and an embarrassment.

That said, I have always suspected that most of these loud mouths are nothing more than wannabe tough-guys who do not hunt very much, and who simply talk big to get attention.

I have written about these fools and fantasy diggers before, and I have noted that their rich fantasy life is every bit as detrimental to real terrier work as the nonsense spouted by Kennel Club matrons.

Does fantasy do any real harm?

Generally, no, but at times yes.

The fantasy digger who thinks a go-to-ground tunnel is the size of a real den pipe is spreading a lie forged in ignorance that allows the "big wink" of over-large dogs to continue unabated.

The preening pretender who prattles on about the glories of brain-dead "hard dogs" in order to compensate for his own male shortcomings glorifies a canine characteristic which, in excess, is too often a serious liability in the field.

The show ring breeder whose fantasy fox is as large as a coyote is what led to the Kennel Club fox terrier -- a dog whose chest is as deep as the keel of a war ship.

The young enthusiast who thinks a mute dog is a fine thing glorifies a serious nuisance and a potentially fatal liability in a working dog, while the "blue-blazer rosette chaser" who cares more about the color of a dog's nose than it's ability to scent does no better.

When push comes to shove, the thing that has killed working terriers over the course of the last 50 years is the creep of fantasy, and the slow but steady erosion of real diggers in the hedgerow.

The simple truth is that you cannot protect working dogs without working them.

And working a dog is not easy -- it is suspiciously like work for the human as well as the dog. There is equipment to be gotten -- spades, bars, posthole diggers, tie-outs, locator collars, machete, yo-ho, veterinary first aid equipment, and a decent pack in which to carry it all.

There are farm permissions to get, and there are the dogs which have to be raised up and given the experience -- experience which can only be gotten by driving out to the country and walking hedgerows and fields for many, many weekends.

This is to say nothing of the reality of digging in freezing cold, howling winds, sucking mud, pounding sun, and swarming bugs.

And so, I was not too surprised when I turned on the computer this morning to find someone had sent me another news article from The Sunday Times of London about the badger-baiting arrests in Ireland. Only in this article, two Americans were named -- the owner of Deadgame Kennels in West Virginia, and the owner of Barnburner Patterdales in Iowa. It seems these two gentlemen had imported dogs from Robert Booth, formerly of Ireland and now living in France.

Booth is a dog-dealer, and part of his business plan has been selling dogs to wanna-be tough guys in America who then go on Internet Bulletin Boards, list-servs, and web sites like "Bay Dogs Online" to claim that their dogs are descended from "Booth's So-and-So" and will "hunt anything."

Right. Hunted nothing is more likely.

As for badger baiting by either of the two named Americans, I seriously doubt it.

You see, neither of these gentlemen live in an area known for badger, and in fact it seems one of them even has to go out of state to hunt groundhog!

The other fellow seems to "hunt" only a few times a year, and this is generally done by shooting large numbers of raccoon that flee the treeless fields of Iowa in winter only to jungle up in barns and silos where their feces damage vast loads of hay and feed.

I do not consider this hunting; it is extermination.

And, let the record show, it is perfectly legal, even if it is not genuine terrier work in my book.

The United States, thank God, is not the U.K.

Not only are guns legal here, but so too are steep-jawed traps. In fact, there are more than 100,000 active trappers in the U.S., and these trappers are trapping (and mostly exporting) over 2,500,000 raccoons a year, along with many hundreds of thousands of wild fox and coyote pelts.

This trapping does no harm to wildlife numbers; raccoon, red fox, groundhog, and coyote numbers are at historical records.

As for North American badgers, which are not related to their European counter-parts in any way, they are not protected in most of the states where they occur in any appreciable number.

If you want to hunt badger in Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, or North Dakota, for example, go right ahead; it is an unprotected nongame species. The states of Nebraska, Wyoming and Missouri, very helpfully suggests using #3 traps. Kansas has a season that stretches from Nov. 12th to Feb. 15th, while Iowa's stretches from Nov. 3rd to Jan. 31st.

And so it goes. . . . .

Which is not to say that there is any excuse for stupidity or brutality.

The oldest adage in the world is both true and poignant: "Lie down with dogs, and get up with fleas."

If you rub up against dog dealers, dog-fighters, badger-baiters, and wanna-be-tough guys, do not be surprised if their mud ends up being splattered on you, whether it is deserved or nor.

And if, by chance, you are the kind of person who does not respect both the wildlife and the dogs, please get the hell out of terrier work all together.

Terrier work does not need thugs and numbskulls.

And, if you want my opinion, it does not need any of these Internet bulletin boards at all. As I wrote on this blog back in 2005:

When was the last time you read something useful or interesting or new about fox, raccoon, weasel, groundhog, badger or even ducks on one of these boards? When was the last time you got a bit of practical advice about shifting rocks, closing a wound, or finding permission? When was the last time someone even wrote a well-written story about their day in the field with the dogs?

Instead, what you find on the Boards are a great number of very young or immature people who seem to get most of their attention in this world by being combative, or otherwise wanting to work out their manhood issues (and yes there are some women doing that too!).

Most of these people seem to know very little about wildlife and not too much about dogs, either.

It is ironic, but true, that in the dog world the most common animal is the parrot -- people quick to repeat what others have said or scratched out. The parrot offers no new information or expanded point of view. They have little experience of their own. Think for themselves? Go their own way? Dig their own dog?

Parrots don't do that -- they are bird-brained and can only mimic. They do not own a library card and cannot hold a shovel.

Starting a bulletin board is certainly easy nowdays, isn't it? These things are now offered up as free services, the code is easy and can be set up in an hour or two, and the only trick is to get people to keep coming back.

No committment or investment is needed. Just erect an electronic wall and let the graffitti spraying begin.

And graffitti spraying is exactly what you get about 95 percent of the time. In fact, this is the chief product of the bulletin boards -- not information but fighting, not shared experience, but name-calling.

It is like a Drunken Night at O'Malleys, except that the drunks are a thousand miles apart and hiding behind fake names.

The folks that run bulletin boards are big on "free speech," but it is pure posture to hide true poverty. The sad truth is that if civility were maintained on these bulletin boards, the real truth would come out pretty quickly -- no one has very much to say.

In the end, bulletin boards have not created a working terrier community so much as destroyed it. The pictures on "anti" web sites are all culled from bulletin boards. Educated people who might educate, motivate and represent the best of working terriers soon turn away from these boards, leaving the loud, stupid, very young, and unemployed to dominate the boards and represent us all.

It is reverse Darwinism -- a devolution to the unfit and the unsound.

I think history has shown that nothing has harmed the world of working terriers more than weakly moderated bulletin boards. Mud and slander has been slung on established breeders, 30-year diggers, working judges, and respected authors.

At times I have wondered if these things were Animal Rights honey pots -- bait stations set out to poison the working dog community. Whether intended or not, that is what most of them have become.

What a sad thing the internet has done to working terriers!

Was I right? I think time has proven it so!
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