Customer Reviews

American Working Terriers

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4 star:		(2)
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If you travel much along the back roads of the Mid-Atlantic States, along hedgerows and small farms or woodlots, you might spot a digger and his dogs. He'd be a quiet figure in workman's clothes, walking beneath a load of tools. His little patch-colored dogs would scuttle ahead in the same direction, obviously on to something good.

Investigate: If you're lucky, and anywhere near Arlington, Virginia, it might be Patrick Burns.

The rest of us will have to settle for American Working Terriers, Burns's rich and entertaining treatise on the topic of digging to dogs.

"When I refer to terrier work, I am not talking about ratting or bushing rabbits or working raccoons or possums in brush piles or barns, but honest earth work in which a dog disappears underground and out of sight, and then is dug to by someone with a shovel."

There is that and so much more: Burns manages in a few dozen wide-margined pages to tell the history of the terrier, first in England and then at home. Not satisfied with the sanctioned accounts, Burns ropes in the roles of social movements and class warfare, Darwin's theories, battlefield etiquette, the American Revolution, rat pits, Teddy Roosevelt, animal rightists and multi-flora rose to tell the story of the terrier complete. And that's just the opening.

The practicum starts with the size and shape of the subterranean dog. Burns blasts the modern standard that favors large dogs (fox terriers now literally too big to bolt fox) and show breeds so far removed from working stock they have to rename them. Typically utilitarian, Burns sets his own standard for a tunneling dog on the size of the tunnel.

This fact makes necessary a brief natural history of each den-dwelling species hunted by American terriers (principally the groundhog, but also fox, possum and raccoon). Again Burns pulls in interesting facts: comparative anatomy; the effects of species introductions and land management practices; the fecundity of female possums.

He covers early training and entering of dogs, and the construction of an artificial den pipe for this purpose that even I could build. Burns's breakdown of the digger's tools (from spade to snare to shovel to bar) has to be the best in print. His description of their proper use gets its own chapter, which opens with an admission I suspect drove the writing of this book:

"I started hunting alone, with a dog that was too big, and a laughable set of tools. I didn't own a pole snare, barely knew how to work a Deben collar, and had only the vaguest sense of what my options were once I dug down to the quarry.

"Most of the terrier books were a wonder - not one mentioned a bar, none described how to dig a hole deeper than two feet, dispatch was never described, and locating a fox sette was a topic missed entirely...

"In the end I did what I had to do: I free-styled and made mistakes. I was pretty sure if I didn't get it right, those mistakes would cost me the life of a dog..."

With a thorough recounting of right technique and a closing chapter on emergency aid, Burns aims not to let anyone pay his dues with the health of his dog.

American Working Terriers stands out among useful books on sport for all these reasons plus one: The writing is swift and clean, a pleasure to read. You can almost hear Burns sink the spade into the end of his sentences. He keeps you digging along side him all the way.

One of the best books on working terriers I have read.
The chapters on History,Tools and Techniques are worth the asking price alone.
Very specific to the American Pipe size. (As the title suggests)
I await Mr. Burns next book.

It's a very informative book. Well organized, and nice illustrations. I enjoyed that has a lot of history regarding working dogs and also has a chapter about training.

This is perhaps the best and most complete book on working terriers. It was very refreshing to read a book by an American Terrierman. This book seemed like a combination of an academic paper and a field manual. It was both well researched and drew from real and practical experience of the author. The book is focused on training and working with terriers to 'go to ground' and the handlers that dig in to the dens of American quarry, including groundhogs, raccoons, oppossums, foxes, and the American badger. I wish that I had a hardcover edition as this book is destined to be a classic.

enjoyed this book from start to finish, have hunted all my life but not with terriers. though book was well writen with plenty of information on going to ground. would recommed it to every one. jack

If your going to dig to your terriers, and you are a rookie, this book is a MUST HAVE!!!


Uncle Ish

I had the unfortunate luck to follow a link to a conversation about purebred dog genetics on the author's blog. After having a perfectly civil and thought provoking conversation with some other interested people about the topic of inbreeding and closed dog gene pools, Mr Burns(any relation to that Simpsons cartoon boss?) jumped in and accused me of being a racist and a white supremacist. When I took offense to such treatment and tried to defend myself from such mean spirited, crazy, unfounded accusations, he turned off my ability to post a rebuttal. So I don't plan on buying his book. If you don't totally agree with what he writes he'll complain about being attacked by racists or zombies or whatever slur he can come up with on his blog. Quite the character. Not to disparage other sporting individuals with decent manners, but I'm not surprised from his rash, dysfunctional treatment of humans that he enjoys following a trial and error approach to killing wild animals in his spare time with hand to paw combat in tunnels.