Over and above his talents and his character, the Airedale has a constitution made of steel and stone. He is equally at home in the snow wastes of the Arctic Circle and on the alkali deserts of Arizona. The dry, bracing air of Colorado and the fever-soaked atmosphere of Florida's Everglades both seem to agree with him perfectly. A sick Airedale is just about as common as a dodo.
"The biggest and best terrier" indeed fits him to a T, but it does not convey any very definite idea as to what he should look like. Even his most enthusiastic admirers never claimed beauty for the Airedale. He is not pretty, unless we acknowledge that "handsome is that handsome does," and can see the beauty of perfect symmetry under wiry coat and odd coloring.
A good Airedale is about as big as a pointer; somewhere in the neighborhood of forty-five pounds, a little more for a dog and a little less for a bitch. His head should be long; the skull flat and broad; the cheeks smooth; the muzzle strong with tight lips over big, white, even teeth. His eyes should be small, dark, and full of fire and his ears little, carried high, and shaped like a V, for nothing can so detract from the correct terrier expression as large, light eyes and houndy ears. His front legs ought to be a pair of gun barrels, straight and strong and about the same thickness all the way down. His shoulders are like those of a race horse, long and sloping; while his pads should be firm and hard, not those loose, sprawly feet sometimes seen.
The only kind of a back for him to have is short, and his ribs must be well sprung. A long backed dog lacks staying qualities, and a slab-sided one has not the room for lungs. His chest should be deep, but narrow, and he should be slightly cut up in the loin—not the wasp-like waist of a greyhound,—but no better is a body like a stovepipe. His hindquarters should be strong, with the hocks quite near the ground. The Airedale that does not carry a gay tail is a delight to no eye.
Last, but not least, comes the coat. In color this should be a deep, rich tan on the head, face, chest, legs, and under parts, while over the back is a saddle of black or iron-grey. Personally, I like the black more than the grizzle, for it makes a prettier contrast with the tan, but "a good horse cannot be a bad color." The Airedale's coat is (or rather should be) double. The overcoat is of hair like wire, stiff and hard, about an inch long all over the dog, except on the skull where it is shorter. Under this jacket of wire, there ought to be a vest of soft, woolly hair.
If you can collect in your mind's eye all the above details of description you should see a big, strong, compact, businesslike dog, full of the proverbial up-and-ever-coming spirit that inspires all terriers. His every movement shows strength, yet he always moves in that effort-economizing way which is the very personification of grace. When running he sweeps along with the free open stride of a galloping thoroughbred, with his head often carried low, but his tail always high.
Very often the man wanting a dog for hunting, for a guard, for a pal turns up his nose at all the finely enumerated details in which the standard describes the fanciers' ideal of Airedale perfection. He is wrong, for, as the advertisements say, "There's a reason." Take the double coat for example. The Airedale was originally bred to be a water dog. The wiry coat sheds water like a duck's back, and the undercoat keeps him warm in all weather. With the kind of a jacket for which the standard calls an Airedale can swim the river, scramble out, shake himself, roll over, and be dry. Moreover, such a coat is a perfect armor against all kinds of thorns, claws, and teeth. The long, clean head with its strong muzzle means a jaw with plenty of room for big, strong teeth and muscles to shut those teeth as quickly and as surely as a spring trap.
Of course, not one Airedale in a thousand comes within seventy-five per cent. of being all that the standard describes. The average, however, is high in America; much higher here than anywhere else in the world, except England, and our best can even hold their own with the champions from the land of the breed's creation. Americans who have been interested in the dog have been blessed with enough of this world's goods to buy what they want, and almost without exception, they have been inspired with the best fancier ideal, that of breeding their own winners.
This has given us a breeding stock second only in numbers to that of Great Britain in the hands of men who could and would use the material to the best advantage. Accordingly, the American-bred Airedale is noted the world over as a show dog, and in no other country has the breed's sporting possibilities been so fully tested as here in the United States.
By birth and breeding the Airedale is a sporting terrier. A dog bred originally to do the work of a vermin destroyer, he has taken naturally to all kinds of game. In the Rockies, he is used on bear, and he has won a name as a dog of exceptional brains, unfailing courage, and remarkable stamina at work from which no fool, coward, or weakling comes home to supper. On the farms of New England, he is cherished as an exterminator of wood-chucks, moles, rats, and vermin of this class. He hunts all the way down the scale from the giant "silver tip" to the mouse in the pantry—mountain lions, wolves, panthers, lynx, wild cats, foxes, coons, skunks, rabbits, mink, what not, each and all he hunts with equal gusto and success. Is it any wonder that though the Airedale is only a little over half a century old his fame has spread from pole to pole?