Badger Trials

"Badger Trials"




For as long as people have been keeping terriers in Ireland people have been arguing over who had the better dogs, in the middle part of of this century men would bring their Terriers and Strong Dogs to big badger setts and enter the terriers one at a time or if the sett was big enough enter a second terrier in another part and work a different badger.

Judges would decide which terrier was better at locating and holding his game. When they dug down to the terrier they would take him out and then enter a strong dog (draw dog) to pull out the badger and work him. Judges would also determine which dogs did this well and not so well, whatever the case. A natural progression from this was to dig out your own "sett" and control the work a lot easier. A series of shores were dug turning left and right and leading to a "pot" where the Badger would be placed. This would be all covered over with timber. Two shore systems were dug, one for the terriers and one for the strong dogs (Staffords, English Bulls, Wheatens, etc). The dogs would be given a minute to negotiate the shores and enter the badger and 6 minutes to work him. Terriers were expected to create an almighty ruccus when they entered but they didn't have to as long as they worked their game. The strong dogs were expected to go in and work the badger without making a sound. If they made noise or if the Judges, listening overhead, felt they weren't working their badger they would be lifted. A dog that worked well was deemed to have qualified.

The health of the badgers was paramount to a successful trials, they would be captured in the two weeks running up to the event and needed to be fed well while in captivity, afterwards they would be released and would be a lot wiser the next time somebody came after them, they say the real test of a dog is to hold onto a Badger that has been caught already. The size of the trial depended on the amount of badgers needed because after 2 or 3 strong dogs some badgers had enough and had to be changed or else it became unfair to the dogs that went first, not to mention the Badgers.

The Badger Trials ended when the media turned the public against the terrier folk and they could no longer have their sport without police intervention. A lot of the Badger digging community got into Pit Bulls as a result of this and the Badger Trials slipped into history.



The Irishman

 

Nice read not all noise was bad for a strong dog though just whimpering or any noise that let you know he didn't have a mouthful of old brock.

 

Did anyone try the APBT as a strong dog in these triels???

If so...how did they get on???

If not....why???
i mean a APBT has gotta be better at drawing a brock..aint it???

 

Some apbt lines are to big for old style drawing but yes there pretty much the same as a good staff for the job.

 

I would of thought as much....

And thanks....im not experienced in digging or drawing lol.

The law with terriers and digging now is just plain crazy...
hey is it true that a farmer is not aloud to put a dog to ground to take a lamb killing fox....but a gamekeeper is if hes got bird killing foxes....
is that true Lrs???

Pretty one sided if it is mate.

 

LOL..theyll ban killing rats and rabbits with dogs next..

Then theyll ban the use of a catapult.

Fucked up shit.

 

Lol catapult hunting is only legal as they’ve forgot about banning it.but if you use stone instead of lead or steel it’s animal cruelty apparently.

 

True enough mate it’s not even allowed if you have a hard terrier legally speaking only baying terriers are allowed to be used.

 

Hahaha yup..'stoning'...its classed as.

Un fucking real bro.

 

Man how can a law state such rubbish?
what if the baying type still kills it fox?
lmao...do these people who make these laws think a fox dont bite a terrier in the ground?
what if you dont no your terrier is of the hard sort? As you would not no with out seeing...so then would you have broke the law?

To many laws to follow for my likings...
FUCK THE LAW.

These laws do nothing for the justice of working dogs.

 

And what if its your dogs first time to ground and it kills its fox?

seems to me that the poormans dog witch is the terrier....has become a dog that can only be worked by the rich.

They take are dogs and lifestyes away.and we cant ride are motabikes...
what the fuck are we meant to do?

Kill each other is what the bastards want!

 

Some truth to that. There’s never any more restrictions on spaniels or hunting hawks..it’s working mans sports that are going.

 

Going?most of em have gone mate...

LOL.kids in like twenty years over here will be like "whats a dog?"
and the dog of any breed might just be cofined to the history books..
but there wont be books in twenty years,and the only image of a dog will bs on a screen.

All the best mate.