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EGGING ON THE POACHERS
By David Hancock

  It is wrong to think of poachers just as peasants hunting illegally. A great deal of illegal hunting, especially in Tudor times, was conducted by the gentry themselves. In his well-researched book Hunters and Poachers, Clarendon Press, 1993, Roger Manning writes: “Poaching was becoming a national pastime in Tudor and early Stuart England. Poachers came from a wide variety of backgrounds. Those from the landed and propertied classes – peers, gentlemen, merchants and yeomanry – organized themselves into poaching fraternities.” In Sussex for example, between 1500 and 1640, 15% of all poachers were peers and gentry, despite being only 5% of the total population of that time. Historically, poaching could be conducted on a very large scale. One poaching gang, hunting in the New Forest in the 1620s was over 50 strong. The infamous Russell gang of 1619 ranged over four counties, carrying away 327 red and fallow deer, 1,000 hare, 1,400 rabbits, 5,000 pheasants and 1,000 partridges. In 1640, in Yorkshire, a poaching gang around 40 strong killed over 40 deer in Wortley Park. Of course, hungry peasants have long used their skillful dogs to take game illegally from their masters and wealthier neighbours; to feed your family has long been an honourable cause. Unlike the violent urban criminals operating in big gangs and their gentrified counterparts of Tudor times, country poachers down the centuries had to hunt alone by night and have dogs that didn’t look the part, or the local gamekeepers and constables became suspicious, hence the lurcher.

   In his The History of the Dog of 1845, WCL Martin wrote:

 “With respect to the lurcher…When taken to the warren, it steals along with the utmost caution, creeps upon the rabbits while feeding, and darts upon them in an instant; it waylays them as they return to their burrow, where it is ready to seize them, and then brings its booty to its master. Bewick knew a man who kept a pair of these dogs, and who confessed that at any time he could procure in an evening as many rabbits as he could carry home. This dog is equally expert at taking hares, partly by speed, but more by cunning wiles. It will drive partridges to the net with the utmost circumspection and address; and will even seize and pull down a fallow deer, and, leaving it disabled, return to its master and guide him to the scene of its exploits. The true lurcher is not so often to be seen as formerly; it is essentially a poacher’s dog, so that any person known to possess one becomes a suspected character.”

  In his The Kennel Encyclopaedia of 1930, Frank Townend Barton wrote:

 “For centuries, the lurcher has been the friend and companion of those wandering people known to us under the title of ‘gipsies’, whose lives are such as necessitate means whereby a ‘catch as catch can’ existence is an expedient. The lurcher lives on the encampment…and when food becomes scarce the boiling pot must be filled, and this it will be if the owner of the lurcher has even the shadow of an opportunity for doing it.” But words on the lurcher, as with the terrier, are rare – the educated classes being far removed from their actions, however well informed they usually were on other sporting dogs like hounds and gundogs.

   But for well over a thousand years in Britain, the humbler hunters have had their lurchers - their own special dog, with pride in its performance rather than its purity of breeding, yet purpose-bred in the pursuit of hunting excellence just as shrewdly as any Foxhound or gundog. Forever associated with gypsies, poachers and country characters, the lowly lurcher has survived the campaigns of rural police forces, watchful gamekeepers and wary landowners, and to this day, still keeps the pot filled for many a working-class household.  The phenomenal rise in lurcher shows in the last half century demonstrates the awareness of interest in these extraordinary hunting dogs of mixed parentage.

  What exactly is a lurcher? Although the word ‘exactly’ is hardly appropriate – there never was anything ‘exact’ about lurchers! If you look around at a lurcher show it is soon apparent that the event would be better labelled 'any variety, sporting dog', for the height, weight, coat and colour are essentially anything but uniform. For a lurcher must be a cross-bred dog - fast enough to take its quarry, crafty enough not to get detected when used by the poacher, and able to withstand the cold and the wet, as well as the odd encounter with barbed wire. Purists might say it should really be a Collie cross Greyhound to be truly a lurcher; but Deerhound, Whippet, Saluki, Bedlington Terrier and Beardie blood have all been used over the years to instill dash, greater stamina or a more protective coat. As 'Stonehenge' described them a century and a half ago: 'A poacher possessing such an animal seldom keeps him long, every keeper being on the look-out, and putting a charge of shot into him on the first opportunity...the poacher does not often attempt to rear the dog which would suit him best, but contents himself with one which will not so much attract the notice of those who watch him.' A nondescript dog without breed identity was clearly essential!

 A farm labourer's dog is not so easily researched as that of the squire, but 'Stonehenge' has managed to convey the vital ordinariness, the essential anonymity and the fundamental disregard for type in what has long been a cross-bred purely functional hound, used for illegal hunting. This variation in type still manifests itself in today's lurcher shows, with classes for dogs over and under 26" at the withers, rough-haired or smooth-haired. Some breeders swear by the long-haired Saluki cross and others by Bedlington blood; some fanciers favour a stiff-coated dog and others the smooth-coated variety. A minority prize the Smithfield blood from the old drovers' dogs and there are usually the more bizarre crosses, such as an Airedale-Whippet cross or a Bearded Collie crossed with a Dobermann Pinscher. The normal combination however is that of sighthound with herding dog, with more recently, Kelpie and Malinois blood utilised.

 Judges at Kennel Club dog-shows have scoffed at the whole business of even attempting to judge such a wide variation of type in one lurcher ring, but, of course, that is exactly what they do when judging 'Best-in-Show' when all the winners in each breed competition come together to compete with one another. Lurcher show judges have long been non-conformist anyway, having included such diverse characters as Moses Aaron-Smith, a gamekeeper from Derbyshire, born in a gypsy wagon of pure Romany stock, the late Ted Walsh, a retired Army Colonel and expert on coursing, and Martin Knoweldon, a commercial artist specializing in the depiction of sighthounds in full stride. The lurcher world, despite the establishment of the National Lurcher Racing Club, with regional branches, has never needed an infrastructure, any tight organisation.

  Overseas, a number of breed-types act as lurchers: the Cretan Hound, the Portuguese Podengo, the Cirnecco Dell’Etna of Sicily, the Pharaoh Hound – the rabbit dog of Malta, the Magyar Agar of Hungary and the Chart Polski in Poland. But our lurchers can possess a wide range of skills, being not just fast running dogs, but able to use ground and air scent and track quarry as well as course it. The lurcher of Britain can be a combination of coursing Greyhound, retriever, tracker, pointer and watchdog. It would be more correct to describe the word lurcher itself as indicating a role, rather than a distinct type of dog. For it doesn't matter if a lurcher is 20 or 26" at the shoulder, rough-coated or smooth, black and tan or buckskin, prick-eared or drop-eared, provided it is biddable and can run. Uniformity of conformation matters little, but composition matters a great deal: good feet with strong toes, plenty of lung room, a flexible back, well-angled shoulders and immense power from the hindquarters are essential. The lurcher has to act as a hunting dog but in its illegal past simply couldn’t afford to resemble one!           

  In his The British Dog of 1981, Carson Ritchie wrote: 

 "No dog in Britain ever drew more fire than the lurcher, not even the sheep-worrier. The gamekeeper hero of a novel by G Christopher Davies, Peter Penniless, lies in wait for some poachers who are about to gate-net a field, having stopped the meuses. As the poachers approach, accompanied by their lurcher dog, which has been trained to drive the hares directly towards the gates...Peter asks his employer what he should do if the dog scents them. The employer, elderly gamekeeper Quadling, replies, 'Shoot it. That's why I brought my gun. The men may be too quick for us, but I thought we might have a shot at the dog'."

  In his British Dogs of 1888, Hugh Dalziel wrote:

 “Some Lurchers have a Terrier cross, others may have a dash of Harrier, Pointer or Setter. I knew a dog, whose dam was a pure Irish Water Spaniel, and his sire, I believe, a flat-coated Retriever, that was the most perfect hare poacher I ever saw.”

 In his The Confessions of a Poacher of 1901, J Connell wrote:

 “A great deal depends on selecting the greyhound bitches from strong and plucky strains. There are what we might call short-distance as well as long-distance greyhounds. The latter are much preferred for our purpose.” No writer of note has ever suggested a pure-bred or easily-identifiable type as making the best dog for assisting the poacher – the coursing dog type got shot and the pure breeds couldn’t carry out the demanding task. The gypsies near my boyhood home had evil-looking dogs – leggy ones for the hare and waterdog-type for retrieving from the nearby lake; their ace dog would catch at dawn or twilight, hide the catch, then retrieve it during the night, to avoid the local and very vigilant keeper!  

   The poacher’s catch-dog needs a combination of guile and speed and over the sprints there is nothing to match a Greyhound. A Greyhound can cover 5/16ths of a mile in 30 seconds. In each decade the feats are repeated: in 1932, Ataxy did 525 yards in 29.56 seconds, and, in 1936, 725 yards in 41.69 seconds. In 1971, Dolores Rocket did the 525 yard course in 28.52 seconds. In 1944, Ballyhennessy Seal set what was then a new world record for 500 yards in 27.64 seconds. The legendary Mick the Miller did the 600 yards in 34.01 seconds in 1930. He was spoken of as combining 'tranquillity with trackcraft'. In other words he never wasted energy nervously and used the circuit cleverly. When he died he was found to have a heart weighing 1½ ozs above the normal for a Greyhound of his size.

  Of course, hounds with a comparable build can also achieve great speed; a 32lb Whippet was once recorded as covering 150 yards in 8.6 seconds. This build is a superb combination of bone and  muscle, a unique balance between size/weight and strength and quite remarkable coordination between fore and hind limbs. The Greyhound sprints in a series of leaps rather than running in a strict sense. It is what is termed a 'double-flight' runner, where the feet are all off the ground at the same moment. This is unlike a 'single-flight' animal like the horse which, when racing, nearly always has at least one foot on the ground. The Greyhound's leaping gait is rooted in quite exceptional extension, especially forward with the hind legs, but also rearwards with the front legs. Anatomically, the most vital elements in such a dog are the shoulders, and their placement, and the pelvic slope, which determines the forward extension of the all-important hind-limbs. That's where the power comes from. This is the power needed by the lurcher.

The Use of Collie Blood

  In his The Dog of 1887, the celebrated writer 'Stonehenge' observed: "When the lurcher is bred from the rough Scotch greyhound and the collie, or even the English sheep-dog, he is a very handsome dog, and even more so than either of his progenitors when pure...A poacher possessing such an animal seldom keeps him long, every keeper being on the look-out, and putting a charge of shot into him on the first opportunity." He went on to state that poachers made great efforts to avoid their lurchers looking like just that, to avoid being shot. But it has to be said that another reason, down the years, for antipathy towards collie cross lurchers in country areas, quite apart from poaching, is that the collie blood can contribute to an undesired canine interest in mutton!

  Ted Walsh, in his Lurchers and Longdogs states that to create his sort of lurcher, he would start with two collie bitches, mate one to a Greyhound and the other to a Deerhound. The resultant pups would be fully tested and then culled, the survivors being inter-bred. The progeny of this mating would then be put back to a coursing Greyhound. This would have given him a preponderance of Greyhound blood but a fair input of collie blood too. It is absurd to declare precise percentages in products of mixed blood, genes work in a random way, not mathematically. Old lurcher breeders tended to put sagacity ahead of raw speed. The sighthound breeds are not renowned for their obedience or their brains; collies are.

 Old lurcher breeders too prized the blood of the Smithfield collie, a type fast disappearing from the lurcher scene, in numbers at least. The leggy hairy Smithfield sheepdog has never been conserved here but lurchermen still prize their blood, just as they do that of the Bearded Collie, the working variety, that is. In I Walked by Night – Being the Life and History of the King of Norfolk Poachers of 1935, the editor, Rider Haggard wrote this quote: “Well, now I will tell you how to train the Dogs, as for netten rabbits and hars one must have a dog. The best breed of dogs are a cross between the Smithfield cattle dog and the Greyhound, as you will get the greyhound speed and the Smithfield sence.” Such a cross has been long prizeed by the top lurcher-men.

The Value of Deerhound Blood

  The blood of the Deerhound has long been prized by knowledgeable lurcher men. Many sportsmen are most impressed by their hunting skills and quite remarkable facility for detecting movement over huge distances. They can track as well as hunt by sight. Some breeds have changed in the hands of show breeders but this breed seems to have retained its essential type over several centuries. It is easy to overlook the value of hounds which could hunt red deer successfully before the wide use of long range firearms. In a harsh winter the skill of such a dog could mean the difference between starvation and survival for the primitive hunters. Once this value diminished however, these huge shaggy fast-running hounds fell on hard times, surviving only in some areas through the patronage of the nobility. Pennant recorded, when visiting Scotland in 1769, that he saw at Gordon Castle true Highland greyhounds which had become very scarce. He described these hounds as "of large size, strong, deep-chested, and covered with very long and rough hair", used "in large numbers at the magnificent stag chases by the powerful chieftains."  Lurcher men, keepers and stalkers refer to them as staghounds to this day.

The Use of Bedlington Terrier Blood

  What does the Bedlington bring to lurchers possessing their blood? Unusually in a terrier breed the Bedlington has the hare-foot, the ‘tuck-up’ of the sighthound and their hunting skills. It can also bring a weatherproof coat and the feisty terrier temperament, although Brian Plummer has written: '...the Bedlington Terrier is a far cry from the tigerish terriers described by Rawdon Lee or the do-or-die terriers bred by Ainsley.' Ted Walsh once wrote: 'An owner of working Bedlingtons has to use tact at all times and avoid situations where jealousy can lead to fighting.'   In a letter to the sporting press some thirty years ago, Brian Plummer also wrote: 'Three generations of 'Pools of Glenridding', Anthony, John and Eddie, always resorted to mating their fell terriers to game Bedlingtons to incease the courage and determination of their dogs...Dobson of the Eskdale and Ennerdale Foxhounds used chocolate-coloured Bedlington terriers to mate his strain of fell terriers.' But some lurcher breeders favour Bedlington blood because it blends well with Whippet blood, the latter taking some of the feistiness away perhaps, the resultant lurcher is a silent worker, not giving tongue when in pursuit of quarry. The gypsies who lived near my boyhood home usually mated lurcher to lurcher, but brought in Bedlington blood about every fifth generation to 'get the poaching dog'! But as always when breeding animals it is the selection of stock which decides; you mate your precious bitch to a chosen sire not to its breed.

 Breeding the Bull Lurcher

   In his valuable book Hunting and Hunting Reserves in Medieval Scotland, John Gilbert writes of references to mastiffs in the Scottish Forest Laws; capable of attacking and pulling down deer, they wore spiked collars and were used to attack wolves and hunt boar, when they hunted to the horn. Gilbert was referring to a heavy hound not what is now the modern breed of Mastiff, whose appearance and especially its movement is scarcely houndlike. This makes a point for me. Strong-headed lurchers, muscular and powerful, are still what the old Fen poachers would call ‘look-dogs’, i.e. they hunt mainly by sight, backed by sustained speed. The broader skull was often obtained through the use of ‘bull blood’, usually that of the Bull Terrier. But whatever the blend of blood behind a Bull Lurcher, the anatomical requirements are similar for this type of hunting dog: a powerful neck, a seizing jaw, with breadth right down to the nose, strong well-placed shoulders and powerful hindquarters. But, as Connell pointed out in his The Confessions of a Poacher of 1901, “The breeder of lurchers should first of all consider what it is he wants. The first requisites are speed scent, and courage. Speed must be sought after in the Greyhound. It exists in no other dog whatever in the necessary degree. Scent and courage are found combined in the greatest perfection in the bulldog.”

  In his The Illustrated Book of the Dog of 1879, Vero Shaw wrote:

 "The best of Lord Orford's strain were purchased by Colonel Thornton on the death of the breeder, and thus found their way from Norfolk to Yorkshire...we are told that 'it was unanimously agreed by all the sportsmen present, that they ran with a great deal of energetic exertion, and always at the hare; that though beaten they did not go in, or exhibit any symptoms of lurching or waiting to kill. These qualifications - pluck and endurance - were no doubt the result of the Bull cross alluded to..."  This is an interesting point for bull-lurcher breeders to heed.

The Use of Saluki Blood

  The introduction of the Saluki into Britain gave lurcher breeders another choice. But what does the Saluki bring to the lurcher table? Good feet, great stamina, remarkable single-mindedness? Or are they just  sighthounds which prefer to chase their prey rather than actually catch it? If you wish to counterbalance some of the Saluki's qualities with better traits in other blood, which 'other blood' is best? Good feet, great stamina and singlemindedness are fine but do they alone catch the quarry? Salukis are long-distance sprinters, they bring stamina to sheer speed.

  There is nothing unique to Britain in the use by hunters of Saluki cross sheepdogs as versatile hunting dogs, which use speed, scent and stamina to catch their quarry. In Iraq, the 'luqi' or Saluki crossed with a local sheepdog has long been used as a "thinking" sighthound. The quarry would be gazelle, fox or hare; the ground mostly rocky but very muddy in the rainy season and the 'going' extremely testing, especially to the feet. The 'luqi' is prized for its superior nose, in conditions where scenting is surprisingly difficult. Perhaps too this sheepdog blood made the 'luqi' more biddable, something many lurcher men here seek in their Saluki cross dogs. The Kurds produced the khilasi, a cross between their Saluqi and a Kurdish sheepdog, to improve scenting ability and response to training. In south Syria, the Arabs bred the zaghuri, allegedly from an outcross to a zeiger, Old High German for a pointer, said to have been introduced by the Crusaders, to enhance scenting power.

The Value of Whippet Blood

 Poachers needing an ace rabbit-catcher prized the blood of the Whippet.  The Whippet for its size, may well be the swiftest of all animals. Some years back, in a lecture at the Royal Institution on The Dimensions of Animals and Their Muscular Dynamics, Professor AV Hill made a number of salient points. He pointed out that a small animal conducts each of its movements quicker than a large one, with muscles having a higher intrinsic speed and being able proportionately to develop more power. The maximum speeds of the racehorse, Greyhound and Whippet are apparently in the ratio 124:110:110 but their weight relationship is in the ratio 6,000:300:100. The larger animal however can maintain its pace for longer periods. Professor Hill suggested that up a steep hill, the speed of a racehorse, Greyhound and Whippet could be in reverse order to that on the flat. It is generally held that a Whippet's best performance is over a furlong on the flat, when it can capitalise on its ability to provide the maximum oxygen supply per unit weight of muscle. This is a surprisingly powerful animal and rabbits are surprisingly rapid creatures.

Catching the Poacher 

 Just as the poacher had his purpose-bred dog, his main opponent, the gamekeeper, had his – the night-dog; specially-bred guard/patrol dogs, often from blends of Mastiff and Bulldog, but with Bloodhound and German Boarhound blood too, they were ‘seizing and holding’ dogs, required to apprehend not scare away. They were often kept on estates and at stately homes, such as Upton House and Lyme Hall, where they were bred separately from the renowned Mastiffs maintained there. Some gamekeeper’s night-dogs achieved fame, with the Marquis of Stafford’s kennel excelling. Some were muzzled and all utilised the mastiff instinct of seizing and holding their quarry, rather than savaging it. Night-dogs were utilized in many European countries, with the French using pastoral guardians as well as cross-bred mastiff types. Poachers who were caught were often severely punished. William Clark (alias Slenderman) was the last man to suffer the death penalty at Lincoln Castle after a local gamekeeper died of injuries sustained during a nightly poaching encounter. Clark’s lurcher is preserved at the castle to this day. 

   Despite the violence often used by poaching gangs in past centuries and the defiant illegal hunting of many poachers of the recent past, the humble lurcher now has a place in the nation’s heart. Dogs may nowadays act mainly as companions, but we should acknowledge their value as a pot-filler for man in hard times. Many years ago, as outlined above, I used to visit a gypsy encampment a few miles from my boyhood home. They had a talented lurcher renowned as a hunting dog for miles around. This dog would be sent out at last light to collect perching game birds or catch a rabbit, which it would then hide in a hedgerow, to be retrieved unseen during darkness. How hard to catch such a canine poacher, whatever the criminality involved.

 There is an ancient notoriety for poachers’ dogs. In his Of English Dogs of 1576, Dr Caius refers to lurchers as Canis Furax, the ‘thievish dog’, as well as differentiating between the Greyhound (Leporarius) and the gazehound (Agaseus), stressing that the ‘thievish dog’ was also called the ‘Night Cur’, “because he hunteth in the dark”. Not surprisingly, the oldest and most famous poachers’ dog, the lurcher, has become a legitimate companion dog. Known confusingly as ‘staghounds’ both in Australia and North America, the early colonists there soon valued their pot-filling skills. We may have lessened the need for such a dog, but we have come to treasure their diverse qualities. They were bred in a hard school and their survival alone merits our support. Their future as a hybrid hunting dog will always be kept alive by true countrymen.