Airedale Stories

Having two generations of Airedales (both from Texter Terriers) provides an enjoyable challenge in that there is seven years (7-human years) between their ages. Both are females, and the oldest, the alpha-female, is 84 in human years (12 in dog years).  The youngest is now 35 (5 in dog years).

Imagine for a minute an 85-year-old and a 35-something going out into the yard to play ball. No contest. Not with these Airedales. Our two Airedales play twice a day. It is intense play. Full contact, play. When the older Airedale (Cheers) lets the younger Airedale know she is ready to play she will signal by “telling her” (telling the younger dog) with a series of sharp barks, while dipping her head under the younger dog’s belly. When that happens, playtime has begun, wherever, and whenever it occurs.

An active chase usually ensues, invariably inside the house, and it goes room-to-room, and turns into a game of hide-n-seek. As the dogs get worked up, they cackle loudly and run at full speed around the pillars in one of the rooms of the house. You would never know there was an 85-year-old versus a 35-year-old playing together, having this much fun.

The younger dog is not an easy play mate. She is a bull. And she can play pretty rough. She (Jazz) uses full contact, body-slamming moves. We adult (humans) know enough to get out of her way. But we enjoy watching the action as it is so much fun to watch how serious they are about their play-action, as they enjoy playing. Of course, if the “play” begins to crescendo out-of-control to what might be a bit tougher than we think is “safe” for an older dog we “blow the whistle” as any competent WWE referee would do in any sanctioned, sportsman-like, sparring.

These are great dogs. We enjoy living with the every day, and we thank God we have them.

Tom & Jaye Holiday
(owners of Cheers and Jazz)
11930 Wexford Club Drive
Roswell, GA. 30075

I highly recommend reading Cesar’s Way by Cesar Milan. Cesar writes about establishing leadership with your dog and describes how dogs perceive their world. We humans try to humanize our pets and while this is a bonding feature for us, it can miss the point with the pet and can lead to behavioral problems in our pets that make living with them difficult or impossible.
For Airedale owners, new and those still scratching their heads over certain ADT antics, please get the book and pay special attention to the part about how to establish leadership with your dog. From walking the dog to changing your body language with your pet - Cesar’s tips will give dramatic results with your dog if you’ll follow them (consistently I might add). I’ve seen examples of what he suggests as long as twenty years ago and can’t agree more with his suggestions.

Writing this on 4-22-09 - amazed as I write the date that the year is rolling along like it is. At any rate, I’m still in the process of updating the web site. I’d like to give a shout-out to April Hoyle of www.aprilhoylephotography.com for her generous supply of pictures (taken of our last litter). April and her family have Penelope, a girl from the litter. She came to visit one day and took many photos of our family and dogs. So credit to April on her fine photography skills. Take a gander at her site when you can -

Rescue is a great thing - we try to do as much as we can with Airedale rescue. Every once in a while, with Dave’s occupation as a vet, we see wonderful dogs come through the clinic that have been found running the streets, abandoned for a short time or for far too long. We see dogs that never got a fair shot at having any kind of home from the start and these dogs are very hard to rehab, especially after years of abuse and/or neglect. It is absolutely heart-shattering to see these animals.

Then, every once in a while, we see amazing cases of rescue adoption with happily ever after results. We’re often successful in finding homes for rescued Airedales and other breeds. In a couple of cases, we’ve been the recipients of rescued animals. Currently, we have Abbie, short for Abandoned. She was a parvo Dachshund dumped at the clinic as a 4 month old in the throes of parvo - she was a brown bag of skin with ribs showing, white gums, not certain to pull through. My daughter fell in love with her and now she’s Abbie short for Abercrombie Spoiled. The Airedales love her and lie down on the floor, belly up, and let her jump on them. They seem to delight in her short legs.

The second rescue we have is Sandy the Boxer. She was found roaming the streets of Houston and a client picked her up and brought her to the clinic. Like Abbie, she was in bad shape physically, but she was older, about a year and a half. She spent some time with Dave at the clinic and was found to have a sweet temperament. Like most vets, Dave is fond of a number of breeds (Airedales at the top of course) and Boxers are one on the list. And more importantly, our son had been begging for a Boxer. Short story - Sandy came to live with us and has been a joy. She and our son do agility and obedience. She also hikes in the woods with me. Neat, neat dog. She usually has her guard-dog face on. She gets overcome with joie de vivre on occasion and I finally caught her on camera smiling. Here’s a picture of our rescue Boxer and son: Sandy

Thank you for doing such a great web site!! We are on our second Airedale and are thinking about getting a second Airedale. I am a physician and my husband is a PHD in Entomology so I read your web site like a kindred spirit… You two are also a “Paradocs”. I have also always wanted to have an “Airedale farm”. And you have done it!!! I know nothing about having a litter of puppies but it is one of my life goals. Our last Airdale we had an agreement to breed her once, but had trouble finding an agreeable breeder to use a stud male.

Anyway… sorry for the rambling. What I really appreciate about your web site is the thorough discussion of Airedales and congenital medical problems.

Our current female has seasonal rag weed allergies that end up with about 3 mos of dermatitis and scratching treated w/ oral steroids and antihistamines. I am debating giving her shots. Sounds like this is common in Airedales. Our dogs litter mate recently died of cancer, which sounds like it was a lymphoma at age 4 yo. From your web site it sounds like that isn’t too terribly common.

Thanks for doing a marvelous web site. If we lived closer, I would be driving down just for a tour. You sound like wonderful breeders.

Dear Texas Texters,

I am bleary eyed looking on the internet - reading up on Weimeraners and
Airedales. I just lost my 14 yo Old English Sheepdog and have decided to end a
30 plus year love affair with same. That’s not to say that I won’t forever have
much love for the breed, I just plan on making a change and end with the most
special dog of all. I couldn’t possibly be as lucky with another OES and so I
have decided to change things up.

We have also had German Shepherds for 20 plus years and my old boy outlived 2 of
them. The Airedale just always looked like a combination of OES and German
Shepherd - in a loose sort of way. At this particular time I find the Airedales
smile and black nose, coat and color, most appealing.

At any rate, your site is chock full of info and award winning writing style.
You folks certainly have tremendous experience and insight.

Our daughter is a Micro Biology student and is taking a very tough
Genetics course this semester. Please help. haha Too bad she isn’t advanced
enough to clone. My dog or me.

Cheers,

Lisa

Let’s hear it for “Camp Kane”!!

Kane is a great dog. He’s a wonderful balance of loyalty and stubbornness. He swims with the labs, tracks with the hounds, spars with any dog and outsmarts them all. He is extremely friendly and a little over-exuberant, but absolutely wonderful with kids (since they always drop food). He’s ferocious when defending our house against other dogs in the neighborhood but would welcome a burglar like he’s one of the family!

Every year, for the last 20 years, a group of us (about 50 people) and their dogs go camping in the Sierra, here in California. It’s as much a vacation for the dogs as it is for us. Since we take 2 weeks of food, our ice chests are over 100 lbs and too inconvenient to carry to our cars at night. We tie a zip line between two trees 75 feet apart and attach “Kane” with a tether so he can patrol the area. This last year, we had a bear, on 6 different nights, try to get to our food and Kane defended it with all his might. He was amazing! Absolutely fearless–. Every night the bear tested him and he went on the offense and kept him out of our camp. The bear went to our friend’s site…….”Camp Wiener dog” and ate all their marshmallows and hot cocoa mix. Everyone who had food in the “safe zone” thanked, petted, and hugged Kane for the great job of being our “night watchman”. The other dogs - Labs, Shepherds, beagle, and wiener dogs who didn’t make a peep, had to live with their cowardice!”

Finally, I have updated our front page. Where does time go?
What’s going on in Texter world? A lot, as usual. We recently sent out surveys to all our Texter Airedale owners and got a wonderful number of responses. I have hopes of posting the general outcome on this blog, but am not certain when that will get done. But to give a short recap - most, like 99.9%, rated their satisfaction level with their Airedales as being a 10 or better (10 was the top number we gave, many indicated it was higher than that - great!). Most of our dogs are doing well - both in health and temperament reports. On the minor scale - occasional hot spots were treated (usually successfully) and willfulness in training was most noted, often with humor. We did get a great number of funny stories and I will try to get those posted. Airedales and their antics - nothing better to read about!
What else - our Texas Airedale club just finished up the 3rd regional specialty. Dave and I took a breather on showing, but were happy to see two other owners take our dogs into the ring - both dogs going reserve on specialty day and one earning a five-point major and his championship on the last day of the show weekend. Nice!
I’ve also taken on the role of president of the regional club. This will keep me from playing in the streets - an ambition of mine when I retire. But not today. Today, I will see what the Airedale board wants to do on a number of pressing concerns like web site renewal and hotel preference for Airedale Versatility Day. And I add that to my job of writing the regional column for the American Airedale, the national Airedale club’s newsletter.
In the between times, Airedales Mick and Sally, along with rescue Boxer Sandy, and I are jogging around the park for our 2.5 mile daily jaunt. Seems we can “pinch an inch” on both myself and Sandy. Mick and Sally are in prime shape, of course. They like to go with us to smell everything and see the other dogs walking around. Mick and Sandy would especially like to clean the park of the squirrels (aka tree rats). Us humans are apparently unaware of this infestation and refuse to cooperate in their plans.

Parts known actually since the advent of Google maps. Thank God for search engine maps. Proves the world really isn’t flat.

Dave and our two oldest are traveling to England soon to visit Dave’s family and old family haunts (like the Sea Witch in Penzance, doesn’t that sound like an adventurous place?). While they are there, they will stop by Jokyll Airedale kennels, a famous English kennel from way back. Big treat. One of Dave’s first show Airedales was Jokyll Baby Jane.
They will also be going to see West Ham United play…I’ve forgotten who. But I’ve been told about the West Ham team song: “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.” It goes like this:

I’m forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air.
They fly so high, nearly reach the sky,
And like my dreams they fade and die.
Fortune’s always hiding,
I’ve looked everywhere…
I’m forever blowing bubbles,
pretty bubbles in the air.

Like my dreams, they fade and die???? That’s a motivational, uplifting song.

Go, Fight, Win, Fellas!
Stay tuned on pics from the Jokyll Kennel.

Here’s a picture of Sandy showing how nicely she’s able to leave the cat alone.

And ta-daa!  It’s Mac the Airedale and Kitty.  Mac looks a little forlorn to me.  “Hey, cats are vermin!  And what was I bred to do?  Take care of vermin problems!  Now, why am I livin’ with this thing?  The outrage of it all!”
Sandy and Ash; Mac and Kitty