The Dog
In Sport
The following is an extract from the above book, which was written by J. Wentworth Day and published by George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd in 1938.
CHAPTER XXII
THE SUPER-SPORTING SEALYHAM
Mr Lilley, if we are to believe John Aubrey, said he saw a fairy which vanished with a most melodious twang. Now, I believe I saw a fairy, hunting a pack of bouncing cloudlets - all white and fussy, all of them hard on the heels of a rabbit. He could go so much faster.
But the white cloudlets bounced into the bracken, poured through the brambles. The fairy, who was in green, tall, remarkably muscular for such a melodious twang, twanged again and sprang valiantly into the thorns. The hunt was up.
The whole woodland sang with it. Tall, winter-whitened elms, in whose bare branches sang the sea wind, rang with the music. The valley which sloped to the sea was alive with a shrill clamour. Here was no bell-mouthed anthem of the foxhound, no deep-throated dirge of the bloodhound, no melodious under-note of harrier or chiming of the beagle, but a shrill, yapping crescendo, a terrier-like cacophony.
Clearly they had bought the place - or, as I prefer to think, had owned it for many years. It was very businesslike, a little noisy perhaps - but a businesslike noise. After a moment or two I changed my mind about the chances of the rabbit. And the fairy, who by now, I saw, was no fairy at all, but had a bristling black moustache, a very sharp eye, and a command of most biting language - spoken, mark you, in a most apologetically gentle voice - sprang about, twanging melodiously - but, as I observed, with a deathly intentness on the encompassing of that individual rabbit.
In fine, he was hunting hounds. And they were behaving like hounds. There was no panoply of pink coats, no thrusting for places at gates or gaps, very few - but there were a few - camera-conscious young women; no horses with their supercilious ascendancy, and certainly by no means any suspicion of a stock-broker. Indeed, there was a not altogether absence of that tinselled, week-ending squirearchy who lend so much colour, grace, conscious glamour, carefully cultivated phraseology - in fact, all the tricks - to a meet of hounds; or equally, to most pheasant shoots, some partridge shoots, and even alas! a few wildfowl shoots.
Oddly enough, this particular day's hunting was like nothing I had ever seen before. I have not see a great deal of orthodox hunting, in any case - but a great deal of unorthodox hunting. And this was the most orthodox unorthodox hunting I had ever dreamed of - let alone seen.
But they killed their rabbit. They killed half a dozen in the course of a day. And they gave us a very good run - several good runs. They went chiming down through the woods towards Roman River, where the sea trout leapt with a splash before some modern improvement polluted the stream. They made the whole deep green valley below Fingrinhoe ring with their music. They brought hard-bitten, hard-riding Essex farmers out of their stack-yards and stock-yards to gaze with admiration, to voice naοve praise. They even frightened a hare so badly that I do not think it stopped running until it had swum the Colne to Wivenhoe.
Now this phenomenon was an occasion of the meet of the Sealyham pack which is owned and mastered by my friend, Sir Jocelyn Lucas, Bart. I doubt severely whether he will appreciate my description of him as a fairy - but, after all, if you are clad in green and hunt a pack, if you are remarkably active, if you spring about a wood twanging a horn, and if John Aubrey's lines come instantly to the mind, small blame to the writer.
His is the only pack of hunting Sealyhams in the country. During the winter months they travel all over England, packed comfortably in their hound van, ready for sport of a humble sort wherever it may be offered them. They provide a lot of fun for a great many people, and in their own way they provide some quite amusing studies in miniature hound-work .
I dare say a big Sealyham, long in the leg, might be able to hunt a badger above ground, but there are several breeds of terrier that could do it better.
But they are excellent for rabbiting, very game, will stand up to any amount of work, thorn, bushes and cold. They have strong jaws, and when they do fight they hang on like death.
Sir Jocelyn Lucas, who owns one of the leading kennels in the country, told me that when a pair of his Sealyhams get a grip he merely lifts them up and hangs them either over a door or a wall! They have to let go then. He very rightly says that to beat fighting dogs is useless. It merely means that you hurt them unnecessarily, and seldom or never succeed in parting them. Indeed, what usually happens is that the beating encourages other dogs to have a go as well.
He considers that the Sealyham when small and active makes a first-class badger-dog for the badger-digger. But they should not be too big, as the badger can dig himself underground at the rate of about a foot a minute in loose earth, and a long-legged Sealyham cannot keep up with him and get him out. The breed is becoming more and more popular every day, and nowadays fetches big prices. Puppies go for about three guineas, older dogs for anything up to £50. Two of Sir Jocelyn Lucas' champions, Hagley Hustle and Bantam, can be seen in the South Kensington Natural History Museum, where they are rather badly set up. Hagley Hustle fetched £300, and was an international champion and a rare dog on polecats, rats and rabbits.
Another champion from his kennel, Hagley Hoodwink, fetched £450 from an American breeder, which is by no means a world record price as Champion Ivo Caradoc went to Mr Ross Proctor, New York for £850 before the War, and Champion Delf Discriminate fetched £1000 after the War.
Sir Jocelyn Lucas tells me that they make excellent mothers, are remarkably hardy, and take good care of themselves. Sir Jocelyn says that you should pick a long-bodied bitch if you want a big litter. A good brood bitch will fetch about twenty-five guineas, and a good dog ten guineas more, but moderate-quality dogs are less expensive than moderate bitches. ..
The first show class was at the Kennel Club Show in 1910, from which it will be seen that the breed was practically neglected by the dog world for fifty years. Mr Freeman Lloyd, who came from Haverfordwest, not far from Sealyham, was exceptionally active in bringing it to the notice of the general public, and I believe he was the man responsible for the formation of a club in 1908 which interested itself in what they then called "the Pembrokeshire terrier".
Since then it has become largely a pet, and has suffered accordingly. Sir Jocelyn has done more than anyone to restore a sense of self-respect to the Sealyham by giving it the chance to justify itself as a real, working, sporting terrier, which is what it was bred for and what it is supposed to be.
Most of the show-bench dogs of today are heavy, clumsy, big-boned, and obviously unfit for active work either on badgers or rabbits.
On the other hand, the very short-legged specimens are more than a nuisance, for they pick up a lot of dirt, and cannot keep pace with a man walking, let alone a rabbit running.
A dog should not be more than 20lbs in weight, and a bitch about 18lbs, and neither of them should stand more than 12 inches at the shoulder. Look for a broad, deep chest, a body of medium length, active and flexible, powerful hindquarters, round cat-like feet on straight, strong legs, a hard coat, and a stern carried well up, "full of guts and ginger." The jaw, above all, should be powerful, square, with level teeth, the eyes dark, and the skull slightly low. Avoid the dog with much black in it.'
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