If you didn’t hunt, you didn’t eat. It was as simple as that in the 13th century.

Anything that helped find dinner was a good thing, and anything that got between dinner and the dinner table was a bad thing. Otters were a bad thing in the 1200s because what otters ate was also what people ate, and fishermen didn’t appreciate the competition. Compounding demand was that a lot of the population was Catholic, and Catholics ate fish on Fridays.

The Otterhound, with its webbed feet, thick double coat, and a nose so acute that it could smell in the morning the otter that had swum through the water the night before, was a big part in controlling otters.

Most sources report that the earliest written mention of using Otterhounds was in 1212 when King John kept a pack for hunting, and created an official Master of Otterhounds, but his father, Henry II, had hunted otter as early as 1170. Some experts maintain that otter hunting is more ancient than fox hunting, particular when viewed as sport and not as vermin control.

Centuries later, another sportsman, Parson Jack Russell, discovered the value of the Otterhound. In his book, Hunt and Working Terriers, author Jocelyn Lucas (who knew a thing or two about working terriers) reported that Russell had once said that he walked three thousand miles of Devon rivers and never found one otter, and that it wasn’t until someone lent him an experienced Otterhound that Russell finally found one.

In her fine article, Ria Hörter, one of our favorite dog writers, writes that with money presumably inherited from his grandfather, the Parson bought his first pack of Otterhounds, and was so successful with them in the summer of 1820 that he was mentioned in hunting magazines. While we correctly associate Parson Russell with the breeds that bear his name, he actually became a “Master of Otterhounds.”

Sometimes, all you need is the right dog.

Image of the Reverend “Jack” Russell of Swimbridge