Red Hand of Ulster (some debate to witch is the original red hand maybe someone can shed light on it), an English Bull terrier used in the badger trials in Ireland - this is a small article about the 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 didnt 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 werent 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
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 16:05:46 +0000
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