For any person that has done a search on the internet looking for information about hunting with an Airedale Terrier they will more than likely come across a site called "Airedales Are A Failure". If one gets to reading the stuff published on the site it becomes pretty apparent that it's sole purpose is to trash the Airedale breed as hunters and a certain Airedale breeder.
From time to time the subject of this site has been brought to my attention and folks asked me what were my thoughts and position on it's content so here we go. I belong to several hunting dog message boards and saw first hand on what lead up to why the Airedale failure site was created, so in a nutshell!
Two members of a hunting dog forum who at one time were very friendly to each other got into an argument. What could of been squashed with proper moderation from the board owner was allowed to blossom into the most ugly internet war between two people I have ever witnessed. From dogs to world politics it festered and not only on the original board that it started on but to other message boards as well causing very ill feelings and some cases banning for both participants. I can not stress how out of hand this thing got and carried on for "Years!"
In the end bad enough for one combatant that was so incensed with anger to create a blog for the sole purpose of destroying the other's fellow's reputation and his livelihood as a hunting Airedale Terrier breeder and that also included doing his best to destroy the Airedale breed itself. I hate seeing things get to this extreme but it is what it is.
As for Airedales being a failure the fellow who owns the site has a right to his opinion, all I can say is to do your homework and research the breed. The Airedale is far from perfect but as can be seen from various published content on this blog and other sites there is plenty of evidence they can make for a pretty decent hunting dog on a wide variety of game and are not the failure one would have you believe.
Al Kranbuhl
