She is really an excellent hunter with a remarkable nose for scent. She can locate several days old moose tracks, and any other source down to the smallest fly. I’ve had her track moose on bare pavement even in the summer. The moose were long gone but she knew they were there before. Amazing. We hunt small game to great success, especially squirrels and grouse. When in town we walk three times a day but not the mileage she loves out in the woods. Kathleen takes her for the evening trot in all weather. Temps she’s experienced are +90 to -50F, the latter with fleece foot booties on of course. I also don’t run her in extreme cold.

Yesterday I had a new revelation into her learning abilities. We went to a local pond to play with a friend’s recently rescued English Lab. The lab named “Chief” likes to chase tennis balls, and especially if thrown into the water. I’ve only ever thrown tennis balls for Vanna on dry ground as she’s not into swimming yet and just likes to wade in water. Anyhow Chief retrieved the tennis ball three times with Vanna “helping” and observing safely from dry ground. On the third retrieve Chief dropped the ball at his master’s side. After assessing the prior events she seized the opportunity and stole the ball. She then ran to the pond, walked out in the water as far as she could, and dropped the ball apparently for Chief to retrieve. He jumped in like labs do at full power and retrieved the ball. Upon returning and dropping the ball, Vanna stole it yet again and repeated the whole “ball’s in the water…fetch Chief” scenario. The owner was shaken by her comic behavior and decided to go home rather than have Vanna run the show (and his prized dog). She’s quite some gal to make a joke whenever she can.

Gary Pearse and Vanna

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

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

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.

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

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!”