An Ceann Tinn

A sore head.

I'm geting a sore head listening to PB Burns periodically having his go at the Glen yet again.

http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2009/07/badger-baiting-is-not-badger-hunting.html

Yes we know the show strain is far too big to work, eh hem !!! Who has a 25lb fit weight bitch who works just fine?

Yes we know the use of a pulling dog is completely unnecessary.

There is no need for the hacking dog with a proper sized Glen.

Yes we know the Teastas was a staged event.

But Mr. Burns is a long long way away and he does his thing and that's great.

He is dead right of course about the need to be careful and keep away from all sorts of dodgy carry on.

But i'm sorry to say that there still are working strain Glens registered and unregistered and where people can get them, the next best thing, Glen crosses.

Terriermen will not spend money on a dog if they can help it, if you give them a Glen, great! If you send one out on working loan, glad to have it, and most commonly preferred option is to breed what they have to a Glen or Glen cross.

Its all about money !!!

The terriermen who have money to spend will of course spend it on something fancy from abroad, that's called grass is greener syndrome and its an Irish Institution.

You want people to know you have something different to them and you want people to know you are better than them too :)

There is a lot of pride and arrogance in certain Irish circles and some terriermen you cannot talk to at all, they know everything apparently and will listen to nothing and look at nothing except what fits their point of view.

In Ireland you'll hear about strong black dogs, this is a type of black fell bred very big to do what a Glen can. It is still is at most about 25lbs. The 35lb Glen is an extremely large terrier for working a hole, so big its real purpose explains itself.

There is often Glen crossed into these big black dogs and wheaten blood too.

Pure bred IKC Glens are rarely seen in the field because most terrier folks will not spend big money on a dog, most will not spend any money at all!

Within the terrier community people just swap dogs in lieu of pups and most people have an allergy generally to parting with money :)

Offer a pure bred sporting strain IKC Glen on working loan and see how many folks jump at the chance of having one and sit back and see what a good dog will do.

We're not going to get drawn into a further discussion of what people do with their dogs, but I can tell you patterdales are cheaply got and easily, mature quickly and breed easily.

Glens are expensive, rare, slow to mature and not so easy to breed.

Irish people do not appreciate what they have either,we are generally a nation of serial moaners who feel its too wet, its too dry. This government's crap, the next one is crap.

Irish dogs did well enough for us when we got get nothing else but along come the days of easy travel, oh no, we all had to have fancy dogs from somewhere else.

Don't believe me, well all the irish terrier breeds fell into small favour here as pets when fancy foreign dogs became available, perhaps because people would recognise you had a pedigree dog not a hairy mutt (!)

And for gundogs same thing and working terriers same thing.

We as a nation are generally never satisfied with what we have, we have to fiddle with things to make it different from what we have, we have to have something different from the same fella, because the same same old no matter how good in day to day terms is never good as some one else's ;)

This is part of why the Glen is rare to date, but I know for a fact that working Glens are increasing and their crosses, being different now to what else is out there, they have a novelty appeal and where they are found to be worthwhile, they are kept and bred into the rest of the terriers out there.

The Irish way is work to work. tall to short, don't matter, rough to smooth, don't matter, if it does it does. And yes the modern breeds are artificial constructs out of the general mass of Irish terrier types that would have been out here.

I am worried about the spiralling inbreeding that has come about, in fact I'm getting pretty panicky about it .... open the register !!!!!!!

A NOTE TO READERS,
my regular Glen website is www.freewebs.com/bailielands
my new Glen website with all the newest pictures and glen blog entries is http://www.anbrocairebui.webs.com/