Fox Size Around the World

The above table is from Paolo Cavallini's paper entitled "Variation in the Body Size of the Red Fox," which was printed in the December 1995 edition of Ann. Zoological Fennici, in Helsinki, Finland.

Dr. Cavallini's paper includes data on the size of red fox from all over the world (Australia, Italy, Jordan, Spain, Switzerland, several states in the USA, several regions within Scotland, several regions within England, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Wales, Ireland, and East Germany).

In all the countries and regions listed, the number of fox measured was greater than 10 for each sex, while 300 were measured in Italy alone. In short, Dr. Cavallini's global data set totals well over 700 weighed fox.

What did Dr. Cavalini discover about fox weight? For one, he found that across the globe the average male (dog) fox weighs just 13.85 pounds, while the average vixen weighs just 11.60 pounds.

The heaviest fox came from a subsection of Scotland where the average adult dog fox weighed 16.09 pounds, while the heaviest average vixen from the same area weighed 13.7 pounds.

Dr. Cavallini provides detailed information about the 300 Italian foxes weighed and measured. The heaviest dog fox in this sample weighed 17.97 pounds, while the lightest vixen weighed 7.16 pounds, and the average fox weight was 12.01 pounds and the average chest size was 14.13 inches for males and 13.27 inches for females.

Dr. Cavallini's research concludes that "body size of the red fox may be variable even within a small area," but also suggests that the average red fox, wherever it is found in the world, is a much smaller animal than commonly believed, and that even in the regions with notably "big" fox, the average fox weighs only between 13.7 and 16 pounds.
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Fake Work for the Glen of Imaal

You can look a long time for someone who has a real working Glen of Imaal terrier and still come up blank.

The reason: the dog is rare all over (there are only about 3,000 worldwide) and always has been, the dog is too large to work most fox dens (it was never used much for hunting, but instead was used for badger baiting which is quite different), and badger digging has been illegal in the UK and Eire for about 40 years.

So what to do? Up to now, the dog has mostly been a show dog, with a few animals being used for occassional bushing or ratting. Now, however, the Irish press in Wicklow reports (on the front page, no less) that the Irish Glen of Imaal Sporting Terrier Club of Ireland believes it can make the dog popular again by ginning up weight-pulling contests for the dog.

In these weight-pulling contests, the dogs are harnessed up a bit like eskimo sled dogs, and are urged to pull a weighted-down sleigh a short distance to showcase their determination.

I have written before about the absence of the Glen of Imaal terrier in the field, and the rise of pulling trials as a way of creating some fake proximity to the "work" of badger baiting; see here and the other links by clicking on the label below.

Now, it seems, the fakery has come home to the Wicklow valley itself. No harm done, of course; the Glen of Imaal was never a true working terrier, and if they invent a new game for the dog in the absence of badger-baiting and turnspits, more power to them.
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Honey Pots and Trolls in the Land of Eire

With four web sites, three dogs, and two semi-adult kids getting out of school to fly off to the ends of the earth, my life has been more than a little busy.

Add into the mix a real job (and a wife who has a job too), and close to zero at-home computer function for the last 10 days due to a crashing Internet connection, and I hope I am excused for not checking the anonymous postings on Internet bulletin boards across the pond.

If someone has a question or a suggestion, most people know how to get hold of me easy enough.

Which is what a friend did yesterday.

Where was I, he wanted to know? Apparently some anonymous Irish kid was raising a kerfuffle because I had said something bad about Irish dogs?

I did? Really? When was that?

I looked through my old posts, and apparently, it's not this post, in which I defend Eire's honor, but this one, which is more than two years old and which speaks of 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.

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."

In fact this 5-minute "trial" with its fancy name was nothing more than a bit of nonsense cocked up by the folks at the Irish Kennel Club who were looking for a historical rationale for their over-large terriers.

Truth be told, even in the 1920s, the native terriers of Ireland were not seen too often in the field. The Teastas trials were designed as a promotion tool for dogs which needed a rationale to exist. Think American Kennel Club Earthdog trials, and you have the right idea.

So that's the background.

The new development is that some fellow I have never heard of before now wants to create a Sturm und Drang about the prowess of Kennel Club dogs at Irish Kennel Club badger-baiting trials that were last held nearly 40 years ago.

He does? Well God bless him for being so helpful to the cause of field sports at this critical time in the political debate.

Badger baiting trials; now there's a thing to be proud of and drag into the current world as if it's a practice as current as this morning's milk!

Now, if some anonymous person in Ireland wants to claim his country has the best badger-baiting dogs in the world, whom am I to deny the claim? After all, I suppose somebody has to "elect to receive" in the javelin throw. Why not the Irish?

That said, I think it's an insult to Irish diggers to tar them with this artificial five-minute "test" cocked up more than 80 years ago by the Irish Kennel Club which banned it almost 40 years ago. It surely does the Irish no favors that this trial was a "test" designed not to emulate real hunting but badger-baiting. There are real diggers in Ireland today. Let us celebrate them, eh?

Now if some folks are too stupid to see that a celebration of the old Teastas tests is a very bad thing, then I will not point it out to them. I try to extend charity to the truely retarded, not abuse them for their lack of insight.

The funny thing about my post on the Irish "strong dog" tests is that the quotes I set into the piece were written by none other than Henry B. Fottrell, who actually supplied the badgers used for the first Teastas Mor trials.

Fottrell held office in the Irish Kennel Club from 1936 to 1978 -- the entire era of the Teastas Mor trials. The article from which I quoted in my original post first appeared in the December 1926 edition of Dogdom magazine. For the record, this is not secret knowledge, and the article I quoted from is not hard to find on the Internet.

As for the over-large native terriers of Ireland, I do not need to say one word about them, as the Irish diggers vote with their wallets on that one, don't they?

Look at the sort of dog that is standing behind most Irish diggers today, and it's the same sort of dog you find everywhere else in the world: Patterdales, Russells, Border Terriers, Fells, and some crosses of the aforementioned.

Take a looks here for example. What's that dog that Seamus Erwin is holding? It's a Patterdale you say? Named after a small village in County Cork is it? I had no idea. His first dog was descended from those used in the Lake District of Dundalk? I must visit that area. The Cheviot Hills are just outside of Dublin are they? That smooth coated white dog is a Glen of Imaal is it? Ah! Pour me a drink, and I will swear to it.

Pour me a second drink and I will raise a glass to Reverend John Russell who was vicar in Kilkenny. And while we're tossing back a pint, let's drink a round to Tommy Dobson who was a Leprechaun if there ever was one. And let's pour a shot for that great Irish poet Ossian. Ossian knew his dogs! If you want to know about Irish dogs, every true word on the subject was first penned by Ossian!

Now I am having a bit of fun, of course, but it's not like the original post was written to actually solicit genuine information was it? As for Kennel Club Glen's, they are about as common in the field today as Chihuahuas.

So what was the point of this fellow's post?

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?

The best advice, of course, is to do nothing illegal. That's what I do, but of course that's an easy course of action here in the U.S.A. which still remains the Land of the Free.

My genuine sympathies to the folks in the U.K. who are being persecuted by lunatics. All I can offer is immigration advice.

Terrier work is still legal over there, of course, and I suppose if you mind yourself you can stay clear of the law. For God's sake, however, stay away from young thugs that want to talk about badger-baiting anywhere.

Nowdays mere possession of a historical book about badger digging is enough to raise an indictment in the press. And you will note how freely this recent press account confuses hunting badgers with badger baiting and how much genuine fiction is slipped in as well.

This is the slippery slope I was warning about in my original post -- the same slippery slope that the animal rights lunatics in the U.K. would love for folks to slide down.

A word to the wise in this regard should be sufficient.

As for Honey Pot Poseurs and Internet Trolls, the best course of action is to ignore them and delete them.

A genuine digger has nothing to prove, and throws his or her dirt with a shovel and not a keyboard. He has a real name and a real address and does not play games with the law or foment negative discussion, especially in a public space like an online bulletin board.

Anyone who wants to drop me an email with a genuine question, a correction or to offer a different point of view, my internet connection is back up again, and my email address is in the top right margin, as always.
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Honest working dogs do not need a Kennel Club test to prove their worth;
they simply need an owner with a shovel who is willing to take them out and use it.

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Slandering the Good Name of Ireland

This post is recycled from this blog, circa May 2006.


I came across a few puppy peddler ads on the internet that should astound those who dig and work their dogs in Ireland.

You are being seriously slandered, my friends!

For example, we have the "Irish Jack Russell Terriers." Irish Jacks, the puppy peddlers, tell us, are better than regular Jack Russells, because the Irish Jacks "...are not bred for their hunting abilities [and so] make better pets." Beautiful! See >> www.irishjacks.com/aboutbreed.asp for more nonsense.

I note that there are very few pictures of adult "Irish Jack Russells" on these puppy peddler sites. Apparently the bow-legged and barrel-chested adults (a function of a genetic defect called achondroplasia) makes for an adult dog that is a little less pleasing to look at. It is certainly an odd-looking dog, and one that cannot work well in the field due to its expanded chest.

The "Irish Jack Russell" people are selling their dogs under several names and now they are promoting a dachshund cross as (wait for it!) a "hunt terrier". They have even created "The Hunt Terrier Club of America" at http://www.huntterriers.com. Ironically, this web site appears to come out the Southwest U.S -- an area of the country where almost no one hunts their terriers at all. The say they hope to get their bow-legged dachshund crosses registered with the AKC. Say no more! The very definition of success for a working dog!

A quick search turns up more puffery about "hunt terriers" from the "English Jack Russell Terrier Association" web site at http://www.ejrtca.com/huntterrier.html where they prattle on about a dog "famous around Limmerick".

Limmerick eh? Well of course, I remember the limmerick:

The internet ads offer puppies,

To rich and quite silly young yuppies

Romantic histories are told

So more dogs can be sold

May I recommend "Jack Russells for Dummies"?

Of course, the "Irish Jack" puppy peddlers are offering no less of a load than you find with most dog registries with their nonworking dogs and their also-invented histories.

If anyone can find a honest history of a single breed of dog registered by the American Kennel Club, you are doing a better job than me!

A rose by any other name ... and the same can be said for puppy peddlers.

"Strong Dog" Trials: Where Fancy Leads to Fantasy

I received a note this week from a noted dog magazine asking if I would be interested in writing an article about the "Strong Dog" go-to-ground trials that have recently been set up by some of the show ring set here in the U.S.

My short answer was "no." The story here is that these "strong dog" trials were created by a Glen of Imaal terrier owner here in America who was trying to find some fake sport (not true field hunting or even barn hunting) that over-large terriers could do that was parallel to American "earth dog" trials.

It seems that agility, obedience, tracking, etc. were not exclusive enough -- any and every breed of dog could be found in these competitions.

What the large-terrier owners wanted was some type of fake field sport which they could claim was a mimic of some useful thing their breed once did.

Unfortunately, the Glen of Imaal and the other large Irish terrier breeds (such as the Kerry Blue) were never used for hunting. They were farm dogs, fighting dogs, cart dogs or types of turnspit dogs. Some of the Irish breeds, like the Irish Terrier, were cobbled up solely for the show ring.

Today in Ireland badger are still dug, but they are dug with the same dogs used all over -- working Jack Russell Terriers, working Patterdale Terriers, working Border Terriers, and various types of not too-large cross-bred dogs. In Germany and a few other countries, working Dachshunds (teckels) are also used.

The idea behind a "Strong Dog" trial is that a dog is needed to pull a large dead badger down a long length of pipe. Never mind that the goal of digging to a dog is to come down on top of the critter, not 30 feet away. Never mind that if you shot a badger any distance down a pipe you would probably have to shoot through your own dog first. Never mind that you cannot shoot a bullet around corners.

Remember, this "strong dog" stuff is a fanciers fantasty, not a digger's reality. Fanciers have never heard of badger tongs, snares, or locator collars and do not understand that when an animal is killed underground, it is generally an arm's length away.

What follows is a post I wrote in March 19, 2005 for this blog which sets out the origins of the fake work now being called a "strong dog" trial.

n n n n n n n n n n n

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No terrier breed is very old.

Depite the fact that all but one or two terrier breeds originated in the last 150 years, most breed histories are so riddled with myth, lies, confusions, disortions, exagerations and fantasies that they are nearly unfathomable.

Part of this has to do with the mythology of show ring aficionados. A coat color variation will pop up in a litter and someone will admire it and attempt to breed more like it. To butter the bread a bit, a short story is invented to explain why the attribute has some imagined import in the world of working terriers ("White dogs are less likely to be mistaken for the fox"). A dog's legs are low to the ground and another attribute is given meaning ("The dachsunds short legs enable it to get to ground with ease"). A dog's nose is lengthened, solely for looks, and we are told this is necessary for work ("The fox terriers long snout keeps its eyes well back from the fox").

In fact, most terrier breeds were never seriously or commonly worked, and even a few of the breeds which many believed were commonly worked never did much outside of one or two owners. The Sealyham terrier -- a great favorite of Sir Jocelyn Lucas -- was such a smash favorite that it was repeatedly said that Lucas "had the only pack of working Sealyhams" in the U.K., and he himself attempted to abandon the breed by crossing it with a Norfolk terrier which, in turn, resulted in such an unimpressive dog that it too passed into the realm of footnotes and fantasy until it was recreated and shoved into the show ring in recent years.

So it is with breed after breed in the terrier world, from Cairn to Norfolk, from Scottie to Irish, from Manchester to Skye, from Yorkie to Kerry Blue. None of these dogs ever saw serious work underground, at least not in anything like their current recognizeable form.

The short and simple truth is that the world of working terriers has changed very little in the last 200 years. The same dogs are being dug to today that were being dug to 100 years ago -- no more and no less. The shovels are the same and the bar is the same. Only the Deben locator is different.

This is not to say that a lot of trumped up histories have not been invented -- from fake paintings of Trump (Jack Russell's dog) to fanciful descriptions of shepherds protecting their flocks from marauding fox the size of wolves, to the creation of mysterious "extinct" breeds of terriers which, a close reading of history reveals, never even existed at all (or still exist, but under a different name).

As noted in previous posts, most terriers breeds evolved (or devolved as the case may be) from cross-bred farm terriers with little or no particular function. Most of these dogs were all-purpose pets and chore companions who, it was hoped, would score an occassional rat, bush a rabbit, and perhaps discourage a fox from entering the farm yard and stealing a chicken. In truth, their chief "job" then -- as now -- was to sleep, clean off kitchen plates, trot at their owner's side, and greet guests and family members with enthusiasm.

Some of these all-purpose terriers found honest work as cart dogs, riding high on the cart and protecting the horse-drawn "trucks" of the 19th Century from petty thieves. Every bread man had a cart dog, and so too did most fishmongers, butcher boys, and fruit merchants.

A few terriers found work as "turnspit" dogs. The job of the turnspit dog was to walk around an endless wooden "rat race" wheel turning meats that were being roasted -- or else churning butter, pumping water or even washing clothes.

Turnpsit dogs had to be short since they had to fit within half a turning wheel housed inside a small kitchen or out building, but they also had to be very strong, as their jobs frequently lasted many hours without rest.

What ever happened to these "turnspit" dogs? Most simply vanished, but one Irish type -- the Glen of Imaal Terrier -- was declared a "breed," though in truth it never much caught on with the public.

The Glen of Imaal Terrier stands about 14 inches tall, but it has a massive head and chest and weighs in at around 35 pounds -- more than twice the weight of the average vixen. These dogs were never designed to go down a fox den -- they are simply too big. This is a short strong dog designed to turn a spit. They also found some use in another arena -- badger baiting and dog fighting.

Small strong dogs were often used in the cruel-practice of badger-baiting which, it should be said, has nothing to do with badger hunting despite the rather obvious effort to confuse the two by animal rights lunatics.

Badger baiting is a betting game in which captive badgers are loaded into barrels, pipes or artificial earths so that humans can bet on dogs that are timed as they draw them out. A baited badger may face several dogs over an extended period of time and there is no larger point to it than to win sums of money or bragging rights, while considerable stress (and sometimes injury) is inflicted on the badger and the dog.

Badger hunting, on the other hand, is a legitimate form of pest control in which the badger is terminated as quickly and painlessly as possible, or else sacked to be moved to another earth. There is no betting, and the badger is not likely to suffer damage from the dog, though the converse cannot always be said.

The Glen of Imaal Terrier, which started out as a turnspit dog, found some popularity with Irish badger baiters and dog fighters. This was a dog that was large enough to pull a large badger out of a barrel -- something beyond the abilities of most 15-pound fox-working dogs.

The use of Glen of Imaal Terrier by badger baiters led some to believe this dog was often used for badger hunting. In fact, this was not so. Arthur Heinemann's Badger Digging Club, which later became the Jack Russell Terrier Club of Great Britain, used Jack Russell Terriers to do the job. Sir Jocelyn Lucas used a pack of very small Sealyham terriers. Bert Gripton used very small cross-bred Jack Russells, etc.

When badger baiting was banned, a small group of Glen of Imaal Terrier owners invented a "test" in an attempt to give their breed continued purpose in a changing world. Thus was born the "Teastas Beg" and the "Teastas Mor" -- gaelic words meaning "Little Test" and "Big Test"

The Teastas Beg was a pretty modest affair and was really nothing more that artificial ratting and rabbit bushing.

"A Teastas Beag consisted of flinging rats into a large pond and allowing the dogs competing to swim and hunt one at a time. The inexperienced handlers of the rats created much merriment and a large proportion of the rats survived to tell the tale. In the case of the rabbits, each one was released from a marked spot on the fresh ground. As soon as it had taken cover the dog was released at the spot where the rabbit had been set free. He was required to run the trail accurately and to hunt well through briars and undergrowth. The actual catching and killing of the rabbit was immaterial as any untrained dog will often do that. Often to save time, the judges would call up a dog once he had satisfied them as to his capabilities."

The Teastas Mor was simply an attempt to bring back badger baiting, albeit under the cover of a "club" activity. Only a handful of Teastas Mor events were ever held, as the authorities quickly ruled them illegal and in violation of the badger baiting laws. As one observor noted of a 1926 Teastas Mor event:

"On the first and second occasions the badger chute was defined as, (rule A4) 'A natural shore at least fifteen feet long, not more than sixteen inches wide with a bed ten feet from the mouth. A well about twelve inches square to contain the badger must be at least eight inches below the level of the shore and at right angles to it.' It is obvious that such an exact arrangement could not have been natural. It was artificial, the sides and top being of timber. This rule cause the Committee's undoing at the subsequent State Prosecutions. The Court held that the baiting of a captive animal had been proved which is contrary to the law and the defendant members of the Committee were fined."

Later the "earth," while still artificial, was constructed of earth and stones and sodded over with grass. The end effect was a bit like a cross between an AKC earthdog set up and an artificial earth for fox.

Unfortunately, a twising den earth in real earth proved too difficult for over-large Glen of Imaal Terriers to negotiate!

"Natural badger work still appeared unwieldy to the Committee and the Teastas Mor on that occasion consisted of an artificial earth constructed of stones and covered over with sods some time previously. The growth of grass made it, in the absence of direct evidence, almost impossible to prove the construction artificial. The badger was put in early that morning before the possible arrival of any police inspectors. It was one captured by a small Blue Bitch of mine, 'Emer,' the previous week. These preparations defeated their own object, for the earth was too long and too narrow and too twisty for the dogs, and none of them succeeded in drawing the badger while some were severely mauled in the attempt. I never saw that particular earth, but it was feelingly pointed out that the members who constructed it had not entered any of their own dogs! After that it was a case of 'back to nature' - a decision both welcome and sound."

In fact, there was no "back to nature" with the Glen of Imaal; very few of the dogs ever worked historically, and almost none are found in the field today even in those countries where legal and illegal badger digging is common.

This is hardly surprising -- a dog designed to be mute and to fight anything it sees head-on is a dog that is hard to locate and likely to be wrecked in short order by a badger. Badger diggers at the turn of the century --as today -- prefer a smaller dog with more discretion and more voice. Unsurprisingly, they use the same terriers for badger work today that they did 100 and more year s ago -- Jack Russells, Fells, Patterdales, and various crosses in between.


For more see:

• >> The Nonsense of Pulls Dogs
• >> Honey Pots and Trolls in the Land of Eire
• >> The Sad Rise of Hard Dogs
  

Slandering the Good Name of Ireland

I came across a few puppy peddler ads on the internet that should astound those who dig and work their dogs in Ireland.

You are being seriously slandered, my friends!

For example, we have the "Irish Jack Russell Terriers." Irish Jacks, the puppy peddlers, tell us, are better than regular Jack Russells, because the Irish Jacks "...are not bred for their hunting abilities [and so] make better pets." Beautiful! See >> www.irishjacks.com/aboutbreed.asp for more nonsense.

I note that there are very few pictures of adult "Irish Jack Russells" on these puppy peddler sites. Apparently the bow-legged and barrel-chested adults (a function of a genetic defect called achondroplasia) makes for an adult dog that is a little less pleasing to look at. It is certainly an odd-looking dog, and one that cannot work well in the field due to its expanded chest.

The "Irish Jack Rusell" people are selling their dogs under several names and now they are promoting a dachshund cross as (wait for it!) a "hunt terrier". They have even created "The Hunt Terrier Club of America" at http://www.huntterrier.org/ Ironically, this web site appears to come out the Southwest U.S -- an area of the country where almost no one hunts their terriers at all. The say they hope to get their bow-legged dachshund crosses registered with the AKC. Say no more! The very definition of success for a working dog!

A quick search turns up more puffery about "hunt terriers" from the "English Jack Russell Terrier Association" web site at http://www.ejrtca.com/huntterrier.html where they prattle on about a dog "famous around Limmerick".

Limmerick eh? Well of course, I remember the limmerick:

The internet ads offer puppies,

To rich and quite silly young yuppies

Romantic histories are told

So more dogs can be sold

May I recommend "Jack Russells for Dummies"?

Of course, the "Irish Jack" puppy peddlers are offering no less of a load than you find with most dog registries with their nonworking dogs and their also-invented histories.

If anyone can find a honest history of a single breed of dog registered by the Ameican Kennel Club, you are doing a better job than me!

A rose by any other name ... and the same can be said for puppy peddlers.

The Irish In America

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An adolescent coyote. Back in August of 2003 Wendy Palmer of Thistleridge Kennels in Missouri got a new Lakeland hand-delivered by Dessi Mackin from Ireland. They went out looking to dig badger in 100 degree heat in Nebraska, but found this young coyote instead. Pics above and more here.

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