Airedale Terrier

About the Airedale Terrier

The Airedale Terrier was bred in the valley of the Yorkshire Aire by mill workers who crossed their working terriers with the Otterhound, producing a dog big enough to tackle otter and water rat and clever enough to do almost anything else asked of it. Airedales carried messages under fire in the First World War and were working with British police forces before the German Shepherd was.

At 58 to 61 cm this is the tallest terrier by a clear margin, with a hard, wiry, close jacket in tan with a black or grizzle saddle, kept in condition by hand-stripping. The head is long and flat with a small, dark, keen eye. Temperament should come first in a stud of this size: bold and friendly, never sharp, because a big terrier with a short fuse is a serious problem in a household.

Hip and elbow scoring and an annual eye examination are sensible in a terrier this large. Ask about thyroid function, since hypothyroidism turns up in the breed, and about skin, because allergic disease is common and shows itself late under a wire jacket. There is no long DNA panel, so the useful questions concern the family: bloat, cancer, and how long the parents and grandparents lived.

Health & breeding

We check every hip, elbow, eye and DNA result you give us against the Royal Kennel Club’s public records by hand, and we record who checked it and when. The Royal Kennel Club’s public records may not include all the screening a dog has had, so a dog with no Royal Kennel Club record showing is not necessarily untested.