working terrier

noun

working terrier

noun
1

a terrier bred to hunt a small mammal, such as a badger, fox, raccoon, rat or opossum.

  • A working terrier absolutely must bark when it is the least bit excited or aroused because in earlier times this alerted the hunters to the location of the burrow where the dog had pursued an animal into its den.2008, Stanley Coren, The Modern Dog, page 90:
Related terms
rat-baiting, ratting

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.