If you were to “build” a dog specifically tasked to hunt badgers, you would start with a short legged dog able to insert itself into deep warrens that badgers call home. Those legs would be good boned, and the forelegs would need to be longer than the strong hind legs in order to efficiently move dirt on either side of the dog’s body. Its shoulders, important to digging action, would be sufficiently wide to permit freedom of action. The dog’s body would be compact, sturdy – even substantial, and be of a shape that some would call “oblong.” Short coupling would allow for good flexibility and agility, important to navigate the steep and rugged Welch terrain. As for the chest (or brisket), it would necessarily be deep with ribs well sprung to allow for a healthy heart and lung capacity. The topline would be level, and the dog would be white to be easily be spotted when running through undergrowth or in dense grasses.  Needless to say, this badger hunting dog would need strong jaws, smoothly formed and flat cheeks,  and folded ears level with the top of its head to keep them out of badger teeth.

When you’re done, you would have created the Sealyham Terrier,  the only breed of terrier from the United Kingdom (Wales) specifically developed to hunt badgers. Everything about its structure speaks to a dog tasked to take on a strong, vicious mammal with prodigious claws. A critter so mean as to be known to go for the scrotum in larger animals. All is fair in love in a war….

At its peak in the early days of the breed, Sealys had a reputation as one of the finest of the working terriers. J.M. Marples, writing in The Sealyham Terrier in 1922, said the Sealy was without peer as a badger dog. Indeed, a year earlier, Jocelyn Lucas, (the creator of the Lucas Terrier), wrote about a hunt with his Sealyhams which was related in the same publication:

The earths being very big, the writer tried a new plan and slipped seven terriers together, “Jack,” “Pancake,” “Twinkle,” “Sheila,” “Flip,” “Gipsy,” and “Venom,” keeping “Tim” and “Bantam” in reserve. They found and cornered their badger almost at once, and after a somewhat exciting dig, in which we thought he had got away to another adjoining earth through a rabbit pipe, we cornered him unexpectedly two feet from the surface. Digging down, “Sheila” and the badger were found side by side, the badger’s head not being visible. “Tim,” having been summoned to hold him, we cleared a bit more earth away, to find “Jack” holding him by the cheek and two others close behind (“Twinkle” and “Gipsy”). This was great luck, as they had collared him halfway to the other earth. We then ran the pack through again, and found another.

“This one eventually tried to dig himself in down a rabbit hole, but “Twinkle,” being smaller, hung on, and he could not manage it. Anyhow, we dug this one within four feet of the other three hours later, and found “Twinkle” fast on to her badger, who was vainly trying to squeeze further down the hole, which extended some feet further on. Both badgers were over 30 lbs. Curiously enough, only “Jack” was bitten, and that at the very beginning. “Twinkle,” who is one of the small, active, short-legged stamp, not too big boned, and weighs about 12 lbs. to 13 1135., had been two days cubbing and two days badger digging out of five days, and was to ground five hours in all the last day. This is something some of the heavy cripples now winning on the bench would be quite incapable of doing. The badgers were put in a dog travelling box, and within twenty minutes of being captured the first drank water from a bowl handed to him. (Somewhat carefully, I may add.) He seemed quite unafraid.”

Why hunt badgers? In those days, badgers were regarded as a nuisance for the oval-shaped holes they dug in gardens, crops and lawns, for their destruction of crops, birds nests, and eggs, fish, and chickens. These days, government officials in the UK have taken steps to “cull” the badger population to prevent the spread of bovine tuberculosis to cattle (which humans can also catch, though rarely). Last year, 27,000 head of cattle were slaughtered because of the disease. Badgers are shot at a distance with high powered rifles, or trapped in cages and shot at point blank range with shotguns or rifles. It’s controversial, and Britain’s Environment Secretary has announced that the badger cull will be effectively banned in 2022 after years of fighting between animal welfare campaigners and farmers.

But we’ve digressed.

The 1920s saw a surge in popularity for the breed, but in the view of some, the breed began to decline when badger hunting was outlawed around the same time. Sealys started getting bigger, something that caused controversy among the breeders who favored the larger Sealyham, and the ones who didn’t and felt that a larger size compromised the working ability of the breed.  Michael Shaw, the author of The Modern Working Terrier, wrote that Sir Jocelyn Lucas, creator of the Lucas Terrier, corrected the increased size of his own Sealyhams by turning to smaller working terriers, specifically, the Norfolk Terrier. When asked later if he thought that introducing Norfolk blood into his Sealys had been detrimental to the breed, he responded that his strain had actually been improved. One must assume that as Lucas was an avid hunter, the improvement of which he spoke had to do with size, and not gameness.

We read that as of 2015, there was a Working Sealyham Terrier Club, though we’ve not found it on the Internet. We also read that of the Sealyham Terriers in Great Britain today, perhaps only 20 are working dogs.  Proportionately, that’s probably not a bad number given that the breed is on the The Kennel Club’s Vulnerable Breeds list, and only 131 Sealys were registered in all of 2919.

There is a Facebook page named Mr. Johnsons working Sealyhams, but the last post occurred in December of 2020. We also came across a photographer’s website filled with a few marvelous photos of working Sealyhams.

We conclude with a video you might enjoy of Sealys at work.  Harry Parsons and his partner, Gail Westcott, have worked over the past few years to highlight the situation of the working Sealyham terrier, akin to being an endangered species. Their Kennel Club-registered dogs work as a hunting pack along with a few Jack Russells.