My Life with Lurchers

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Before a wild boar harms a child in rural Britain, a likely occurrence if a sow is accompanied by piglets, some form of control makes good sense. Shooting wild boar is not easy and a wounded boar is doubly dangerous. Although ignorant do-gooders would never sanction it, boar-hounds, or boar-lurchers, seizing the boar by the ear for immediate despatch by humane-killer is a kinder option. Our distant ancestors knew the value of such seizing dogs; we have unthinkingly pursued the shooting method - and that is not wise - or the most humane. Some dogs in such dangerous work might well get killed - that is the nature of such a form of control.

widge my hancok lurcher who is also sat next to me i bought and he is the only dog i have that was not mistreated he has no behavirily (sic) problems he was a 10 week old puppy i brought home he had no confidence issues he will be with me forever. if the demand for his dogs is such he will keep breeding dogs to sell for profit to any 1 that turns up.when you go to his premises he is a polite person who is very hard not to like.the problem is with his business any 1 can buy a dog from him. i am absolutly 100% happy with the dog i bought and i will comment on his premises are not up to scratch.A good lurcher is made, not bred. It is down to the quality of the trainer/owner/handler how well a lurcher turns out. A GOOD DOG MAN will make something of a pretty poor pup. A POOR DOG MAN can ruin the best of blood. But the best physique is squandered without keenness in the chase and immense determination, an alert eager expression in the eye indicates this and is essential. A judge has to ask himself: will this dog hunt? Can this dog hunt with this anatomy? Better judging, based on a more measured assessment, should lead to the production of better dogs. Fieldsports folk have too much sense to allow such a concept to degenerate into the pretty polly state prevalent in the pedigree dog show rings. Lurcher shows are a bit of fun; the only real test for such a dog is in the chase. But that 'bit of fun' can raise standards too if the judges' criteria are sound. Who wants to win with an unworthy dog? The pens are spread around a small farm. Half of the farm is a separate car salvage / repair yard, which is slightly intimidating and presents a poor image on first entry. The Buildings are not new and certainly had the ‘well used farm’ look about them but they seemed reasonably maintained with good power, light, water etc.

In his 'Hunting Big Game in Africa with Dogs' of 1924, the American Er M Shelley describes how the catch-dogs were not allowed to run with the trailing hounds but held by natives until they were needed. This was the role of the hunting mastiffs in medieval Europe. This is why I believe the term 'bandogs' referred to leashed catch-dogs and not to chained yard dogs as many writers record. The risks to the dogs in hunting big game are described by Shelley: "Dogs are very fond of hunting them (i.e. warthogs), but it usually proves disastrous for the dog, for these hogs have two long tusks that protrude far out from the lower jaw, and they use them with deadly effect. Dogs can be maimed or killed much more readily by hunting these hogs than by hunting lions."David was keen to point out that they are inspected by the local authorities to ensure that they are compliant (whatever that means). From my perspective it would help if he did have such welfare inspection certificates on view.

David starts with a working collie BITCH and mates it to a greyhound dog. THAT is a colliexgreyhound. If you use a colie dog and put it on a greyhound bitch YOU DO NOT GET THE SAME THING. That is a Geyhound x collie. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? This is where those who do not understand genetics start to get found out!This variation in type manifests itself at lurcher shows today, with classes for rough and smooth-haired dogs and those under or over 26 inches at the withers. Some breeders swear by the saluki cross and others by Bedlington blood; some fanciers favour a rough or harsh-haired dog and others the smooth variety. A minority prize the 'Smithfield' blood from the old drovers' dogs and there are often more bizarre crosses such as beardie cross Dobermann and Airedale cross whippet. The concept, as always with a hunting dog, is to find the ideal match between quarry, country and conditions on one hand and speed, determination and hunting instinct on the other. First of all, does a lurcher have to be so big! Are clandestine gazelle hunts being held, with a need for thirty inch dogs? I regularly see lurchers at shows which must weigh 90-100 lbs. I would have thought that even for pre-ban hare-hunting on Salisbury Plain or around Newmarket, 60-70 lbs was easily big enough. The famous coursing greyhound Master M'Grath, three times winner of the Waterloo Cup, believed by many to have no equal for pace, cleverness and killing power, weighed 52-54 lbs. Wild Mint weighed 45 lbs and Coomassie only 42; both were superbly effective coursing dogs. I hate to think of how much food a brace of these 100 lb monsters eats! For perhaps the best part of a thousand years in Britain the humblest of hunters have had their very own hound, with pride in its performance never in its pure-breeding, yet purpose-bred in the pursuit of hunting excellence just as shrewdly as any Foxhound, setter or spaniel. Forever associated with gypsies, poachers and country characters, the lowly lurcher has survived the campaigns of rural police forces, watchful gamekeepers and wary landowners and to this day still fills the pot of many a working class household. Yet nowadays the lurcher fancier is truly classless, sometimes even being owned by its traditional opponents. The phenomenal spread of lurcher shows in Britain in the last three decades has indicated the level of interest in these extraordinary hunting dogs of mixed heritage. But it has also brought at times a tendency to breed a type that will win at shows rather than a "chase, catch and kill" champion.

Between 1611 and 1680, gamebooks reveal that around 40,000 wild boar, sows and young boars were killed in Saxony. In 1737, King Augustus II himself killed more than 400 wild boar in the course of a single hunt in Saxony. John George II, killed over 22,000 wild boar in 24 years. In the Bialowieza Forest in 1890, in a fortnight's hunting, 42 bison, thirty-six elk and 138 wild boar were killed. This is the frame in which to picture the Great Dane type as a bison hound, auroch hound, staghound and boarhound. Perhaps because of the wholly arbitrary division of hounds today into scent or sighthounds, multi-purpose hounds which hunted 'at force', using scent and sight to best effect, have been neglected. I believe he has turned his owness to the agility and pet market now. Cos of course there arnt enough lurchers that make excellent pets waiting for homes in rescue as it is are there :- " The mum's did not seem stressed. I paid as much attention to them as I did the pups. They were relaxed and friendly.

He is a 'volume breeder'. On each for the 4 or 5 visits that I made I recon there were approx. 10 litters between 0-8 weeks. If the dogs he produces are shit hot.... And make the grade .....there will be litters out of them..... buster d terrier cross he has been with me for aslong as 8 years he was found on a kennel with no water or food the owner was not intrested. The word lurcher does give many the impression of a coarsely-bred dog, with no regard to soundness, just a mongrel sighthound of questionable merit. But a number of them that I see at country shows have been skilfully bred by knowledgeable dog-men, men with decades of experience with hunting dogs. They are superb canine athletes, quite beautifully formed and devastating in the field. The sheer muscularity of Bull-lurchers (those with plenty of Bull Terrier in the blend), the awesome stature of the Deerhound hybrids and the deceptive power of the Whippet crosses is impressive. Lurcher breeders are seeking performance not appearance yet still manage to breed some strikingly handsome dogs. The huge difference between show breeders and lurcher breeders lies in the priority given to appearance and capability. That is not say, of course, that there are not some highly effective pure-bred coursing Deerhounds, racing Afghans and Whippets, and lure-casing Salukis. Show Greyhounds do however disappoint me. If you take the first cross C x G and mate them together you can get some nearly pure greyhound, some nearly pure collie and some c x g - I don't know how to draw on a computer, but because you 50% of each on both sides, you can get 100% of one or other.