The Sealyham Dog in Sport

The true sport of the Sealyham and its owner is ribbon chasing!

The Dog In Sport, written by J. Wentworth Day and published by George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., was published in 1938, and the author describes what happened to the Sealyham terrier:

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.

J. Wentworth Day notes that, as of 1938, Sir Jocelyn Lucas had "the only pack of hunting Sealyhams in the country." But even that pack was not to last too long.

It seem Lucas himself could not make a go of it with Sealyham's, and he and his his kennel partner, Mrs. Enid Plummer, found it almost impossible to carry on their own kennel of Sealyham terriers (under the Ilmer prefix) in the face of show-ring demands for ever-larger Sealyhams with elongated faces and softer coats.

In the end, the man with the only pack of hunting Sealyhams in the UK, gave up on the breed and tried to make a new smaller dog (named after himself) called the Lucas Terrier. This dog, which was a cross between a Sealyham and a Norfolk terrier, was such a disappointment in the field that they too have largely disappeared except as a show ring and bushing dog.

So are there no working Sealyham's about today? Well, that depends on what you mean by Sealyham. If you are willing to accept any cobby thick-bodied and short legged Jack Russell with a woolly coat as a "Sealyham" or "Sealyham type," then you may be able to find a working dog. One person who claims his working dogs are Sealyhams, has dogs that look a great deal like unclipped poodles! That said, if you are looking for a registered dog, you are not likely to come up with success if you also demand that it work, or that its sire and dam worked.

But that's true for all the Kennel Club terrier breeds though, isn't it?

Reposted from August, 2007.
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