Ardgour man saves famous battleship In Loch Linnhe

West Highland white terriers have always been popular and since writing about them in these columns a few years ago, I received quite a number of comments and questions from readers who saw a photograph of mine of a group sitting on a rock, which I believed had been taken on Skye. I was in error. These dogs belonged to an old Argyll family and were called ‘The Poltalloch Eleven’.

The West Highland white terriers we know and admire today, are due to three people – George Douglas Campbell (1825-1900), 8th Duke of Argyll, who bred what became known as the ‘Roseneath Strain when the Dukes of Argyll owned Roseneath Castle overlooking the Gare Loch; Col Edward Donald Malcolm (1837-1927), 16th Laird of Poltalloch, Kilmartin, Argyll; and Mrs Christian Cameron-Head of Inverailort (1859-1941), on the Road to the Isles.  

According to a family tradition, the Poltalloch breed came into being when one of Col Malcolm’s favourite reddish-brown terriers was mistaken for a fox and shot. Thereafter he decided to breed and work white terriers because they would be more visible. Mrs Cameron-Head, who had been brought up with Drynoch terriers from Skye, maintained they should be strong, small-boned, small enough to go to earth and strong enough to fight the quarry when they got there. Her dogs won many prizes at Crufts and by 1916 she was being described in numerous publications as the foremost authority on the breed.

Not a great deal is known about the early Poltalloch Terriers and their pedigrees other than the Col insisted that they must be willing to attack their prey whether it be fox, marten, badger or otter. They had to be keen and strong enough to fight underground. Col Malcolm used to say: “These terriers must be shown in working clothes. Only a bit tidied up, washed and brushed and in possession of their valuable undercoat”.

In the early days light-coloured terriers existed in the Highlands. 

Thomas Bell, in his ‘History of British Quadrupeds’ (1837) described their coats as off-white. As white terriers were not popular then they were usually destroyed at birth. 

The first Poltalloch Terriers were described as rough-haired with coats up to three inches long and yellow or sandy in shade, well boned with straight front legs, short muzzles, big noses, strong teeth and erect ears. 

By the time of their deaths Col Malcolm, the Duke of Argyll and Mrs Cameron-Head of Inverailort witnessed the development of their breed not only as working dogs but international show stoppers, and popular pets worldwide, although what they would have thought of some of the excessively over-weight and over trimmed, pampered and coat-clad Westies being paraded along today’s high streets, is perhaps best left to the imagination!

While our Highland forebears were breeding dogs to kill foxes, others, according to an advertisement in an Inverness-shire newspaper of 1862, were in search of foxes for a different reason.

“To gamekeepers and others. A gentleman being desirous of procuring foxes for a hunting country, will give fifteen shillings a-piece for old foxes and ten shillings a-piece for cubs, besides paying their carriage by railroad or steamer. 

“They must be delivered alive and uninjured to Mr John MacDonald, Newhaven Oyster-House, Glassford Street, Glasgow.”