They wouldn''t be much good at working then would they!
This sort of statement is what puts peopel off perfectly reasonable dogs and is very foolish.

Btw I have a working terrier (type, though he does kill rats ect) who's excellant off lead, anywhere.

Adam

I have 2 Kerry Blue terriers and the female I keep on a flexi-lead as she doesn't like large dogs and is now partially sighted in one eye and blind in the other.
My male Kerry is very good off-lead-he will stop chasing bunnies dead in his tracks and fly back to me when I call him. he even did this when chasing a cat that he spotted in the middle of the field the other day! Did he start out like this? No-we rehomed him at the age of 2 and the first time I let him off-lead where I knew it was safe he took off after a flock of geese, jumped 4 electric fences (no livestock otherwise obviously I wouldn't have let him off) and was just a little speck in the distance! He only came back because the geese fortunately turned round and flew back.

Just needed positive training with reinforcements which for him is small treats and now he is brilliant.

Someone we see on the park recently who has a Border terrier and the dog is extremely naughty and he could never get it back. My husband told him about how we trained Parker and he said "oh it wouldn't work for my dog-he is a Border terrier and they don't come back when they are called!" (though if he really thought that you have to question why it was allowed off-leash!

We also saw someone with a JRT who took off after rabbits and it took the owner half an hour to get it back. When she did eventually get it to come back to her when she called it she smacked it! I said that I could see she was annoyed but that was the reason her dog didn't come back to her but she said no, the dog knew it had done wrong!
Sadly this is not an isolated incident.

People make excuses for their dog's behaviour-terriers may not be the easiest dogs to train but I don't think you should doom them to a life of being on a leash cos you can't put the effort in.

I couldnt agree more!

I think that it is too easy to generalise with this one.

Our rescue Jack Russell, that we have now had for five months, has never been allowed off his fishing line lead.......firstly because it is suspected that he got himself stuck down a rabbit/fox hole in Ireland and was only found when he was so thin that he was able to crawl out again. He is constantly looking for something to hunt, and if we had nothing but wide open fields then this would not be so bad..........BUT, even though all our walks are lovely and through woods, fields and by the river, a main road is but a quick dash away from each path. So many Jack Russells are killed darting into a road after a cat or rabbit, and I am not prepared to take the risk quite honestly. He is happy on his lead, and has a large garden to hurtle around in when he is at home.

He was already an older chappie when we took him on, and he has very little in the way of brain cells........by the time that we train him to instant recall, if indeed that is possible which I doubt with him, he will be too old to chase things anyway!!! It is on lead all the way with him.

I can understand your reasons and the fact your Jack has such a high prey drive does make him an offlead risk. I just don't understand the statement that nearly all working type terriers can never be offlead. Going on what's been posted just on this thread, more terriers are offlead than not.

I don't understand how it can be so generalised, as each dog should be judged by its own merits.

I know so many different terriers, all from working lines, some are fine like my Midgie, and never need a lead, where as others have to be kept on a lead all the time, because their prey drive gets the better of them and theres no stopping them.

Because of my experience with Tilly, I don't really want to take on an older working terrier, but there were other issues as well as the never being allowed off lead ever!!

i agree, jake isnt a terrier (he may have some in there though) and he has been a nightmare off lead but after a lot of hard work, he is really getting there now!

i meet a guy with a beagle a lot, and he does the same thing. Hasn’t ever let him off lead but says that he cant get off coz he wont come back and he wont try coz he ‘is a beagle, and they wont come back’.

My Rogue is from working lines and she is fab off lead. Apparently Estrelas shouldn't go off lead either, or Elkhounds, but that never stopped me. You just find safe appropriate place to run them. My jrt is a lot more responsive and obedient than the other dogs I've had.

Could it also be a case of that terrier tenacity (which, i'm assuming is even more pronounced in working terriers)? I've read Irish Terriers should never be off lead simply because they are not good around other dogs or small animals.

My OH has lost a couple of terriers (Border Lakelands) over the years down holes, never to be seen again, despite his best efforts.

Sorry to hear about your OH's lost terriers.

re Irish terriers shouldn't be off-lead as they aren't good around other dogs-I have read this in breed books about Kerries too and it is a shame to damn them all. Parker has a lovely temperament and socialises well with other dogs. Yes he will "stick up for himself" if challenged by a dog the same size but just backs away from small dogs if they are not friendly and submits to larger dogs-very sensible!

You have to go by the temperament of the individual dog-my 2 though the same breed are complete opposites. Reading this in a book is not helpful or true.