This is my first dog, Medley. We had 15 great years with him. My family got him when I was 9, because I desparately wanted a dog but had allergies. We got him from a wonderful woman in New York who, even though she is in her 90's and Medley has been gone for several years, still stays in touch at least a few times a year.
It is a little hard to say what he would have been like if we had worked more with him. Generally, he was a great dog for us. He adapted very well to the changes in our lives as we grew up.
He had a very high prey drive - don't believe what you read about them being "softer" terriers. Medley regularly killed rodents in the yard and killed several skunks over the years. He was extremely focused once he zoned in on a creature. Somewhere I have video tape of him spending hours at the base of a tree that he had chased a chimpmunk up.
Medley did well with other dogs when he was younger. The last year or so of his life, he got a bit snippy with pushy dogs, but I think that was mainly just protecting himself. When we first got him, we had a 25 lb cat that taught him to be very respectful, and never had a problem with him around cats.
He did resource guard, but we never tried to fix it. We would joke about the fact that, when he had a Frosty Paws, if you walked in the room he would get all tense and start growling
. What can I say - we were amateurs!
I did allow him off-leash some when he was young as long as we were pretty far from any traffic; he had a decent recall as long as their wasn't any prey around. He was a moderate barker - he never barked for the sake of barking, but if something got his attention, he'd let us know. I have this image of him during thunderstorms, standing tall at the end of the driveway, barking defiantly at every burst of thunder.
He was pretty trainable; I regret we didn't do more with him. I started teaching dog classes when he was about 13 or so, and he learned a nice emergency down and improved his recall immensely once I knew how to train it. He also taught my mother to give him biscuits the entire time she was on the phone. You would hear her pick up the phone, and then hear the sound of the drawer opening and cookies hitting the ground. If she stopped, he would bark. After he learned that trick, it took him another day and a half to figure out the portable phone
. He also knew he would get a treat when he came inside from the yard, and would often scratch at the door. As soon as you opened it up to let him out, he just turn and trot over to the cookie drawer. He was very bright - played everyone in the house like a fiddle!
I knew one other Bedlington that I had in beginner obedience and agility classes. Very bright, although not the most food motivated dog in the world. Honestly, I will probably never own another, mainly because of the coat issue. It was a pain to deal with - I like short, easy coats! But it does amaze me, looking back, at how much Medley tolerated and adjusted to. He lived with us for probably the most chaotic 15 years of our family's history, and just went with the flow. He was generally very healthy right up to the end; he had about three weeks where he started to go downhill, and then the end (organ failure) was very quick.
They are very neat dogs - feel free to ask any specific questions you have. And sorry - that got a lot longer than I meant it to be!
