Captain John Tucker-Edwarde’s new breed had to be white. It had to be. He never again wanted to experience the horror of shooting a dog thinking it was the real quarry. He decided to breed a terrier that would fearless in the face of rats, otters and badgers (critters with a temper), and to get there, it’s thought that Tucker-Edwardes crossed Dandie Dinmonts, Fox Terriers, West Highland White Terriers (did we mention that the dog had to be white?) and Corgis, among others, to create the small, sturdy and white dog we know today as the Sealyham Terrier. His new creation was finally registered with Britain’s Kennel Club in 1910 – and for awhile, it was the “must have” breed for the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Humphrey Bogart, Princess Margaret, Cary Grant, and Alfred Hitchcock. A Sealyham puppy named “Dusty” even captured the hearts of an entire nation in a series of British Pathé newsreel films (seen below) in 1946.
What a difference a generation makes. Nearly three years ago, a cover of the magazine, “Country Life,” featured a white terrier puppy with morose expression. The cover’s tag line was ‘SOS: Save Our Sealyhams’, and the cover feature inside detailed the decline of this marvelous breed. Since then, Sealyham numbers have been creeping up, but the breed remains on the Kennel Club’s list of Vulenerable Breeds. Why, we have no idea. The breed is enchanting and the dogs are fine ratters. To learn just how dangerously low the breed numbers got, visit this link from which this image by Charles Sainsbury-Plaicecomes comes.
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