Time's up for terriers

A host of once-tenacious working breeds are in dire straits due to pampering pet owners and the Hunting Act, warns Sir Johnny Scott

- Sir Johnny Scott

Sometimes, when I go to the bank in the local town, I see a much-coiffeured white West Highland terrier being taken for his constitutional along the lane by the church.

The extraordinary thing about this portly little dog is that he expresses disapproval of passing bicyclists, but completely ignores the rabbits crossing the lane from the warren in the graveyard. It is a sad reflection that one of the oldest terrier breeds in Scotland, bred hard enough to tackle fox, badger, polecat, otter, and any other Highland vermin should have become so emasculated.

However, the breed — once so highly thought of that James VI of Scotland sent six dogs and bitches from Argyllshire to France as a gift for Henry III — is not alone. Its close cousin, the cairn terrier, bred for bolting foxes from among the cairns where Highland foxes tend to hole up and for general pest control, which included everything from a rat to a wildcat, have gone the same way.

Once quite bold enough to take on an otter — in the 1890s, Captain Macdonald of Waternish in northwest Skye kept a pack of 40 cairns for hunting otters — they are now only pets and show dogs.

The Aberdeenshire terrier, nicknamed the ‘Diehard’, is another. With powerful jaws and short, sturdy legs, they were a notoriously tough, determined dog to the ground. Renamed the Scottish terrier when they became a designer dog, it will be at least 100 years since any of them have been used for the job for which they were bred.