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BREED HISTORY:
~The Jack Russell Terrier~
When speaking about the Jack Russell Terrier there is a great deal of confusion among much of the general public. You have the JRTCA Jack Russell terrier, the AKC Parson Russell Terrier, the UKC Jack Russell Terrier(now the Parson) and the AKC Russell Terrier. The JRTCA was the first registry for Jack Russell Terriers in America, “we” are also the largest. The AKC dogs and the UKC dogs have stemmed from the JRTCA or English JRTCGB (jack Russell Terrier club of Great Britain ) lines. They have made changes to the original standard and are therefore considered separate breeds of dog.
The JRTCA maintains the Jack Russell as a strain or type of working terrier, not as a breed. A dog must have proper physical characteristics, as well as pass a veterinary exam in which the dog is given a thorough inspection, the dog is also required to provide a pedigree, although the dog need not be full Jack Russell. Most of our founding dogs were crosses from the great terrier kennels in England. Terrier men in England and Europe still breed their dogs this way. Most Jack Russells, can trace their pedigrees back to Lakelands, Fells, and a Border Terrier here and there.
The JRTCA does not allow heavy line breeding as the other registries do. The JRTCA does not allow more than 16% inbreeding in any registered dog. the other Kennel Clubs allow mother/son and father/ daughter breedings. Kennel Clubs are closed registries, meaning no new blood is allowed into the gene pool. As dogs die and are lines are inbred the gene pool gets tighter and tighter. As a result many kennel club bred dogs ( in general, not parsons specifically) have a very small gene pool. The pug population for instance in England is roughly 50,000 dogs, yet they have become so inbred they have the gene pool of a breed with just 50 dogs in it. This is the problem with a closed registry system. The gene pool doesn’t get bigger as the number of animals increases. As a general rule dogs that are heavily inbred have more genetic and congenital defects than dogs that aren’t as tightly bred.
The early history of these breeds is the same, and so for now we will refer to them as Jacks.
The Reverend John Russell (1795-1883), bred one of the finest working terriers to fox in Devonshire, England in the mid-to-late 1800's. Keep in mind that the white fox-working terriers predate the Reverend John Russell. And that the young Russell even bought Trump from a milkman who had her tied to his cart, with out seeing her work. The Parson did have a passion for fox hunting and breeding dogs. He is also said to be rather flamboyant, accounting for his terrier's notability and the name given to this type of terrier after his death. Although he was a bit of a dog dealer and had to sell off all of his dogs more than once for lack of money. At the end of his life he had already given up his hounds and had only 4 old non breeding terriers.
the Rev. Russell refused to register his dogs with Kennel Club, which was founded in 1873. He judged one terrier show for them, as an old man, and did not like what he saw in the show ring, he refused to judge another. Near the end of his life the kennel club fox terrier had already become drastically different from the fox hunting terriers of the country side, and those the Rev. himself bred. "True terriers [my own dogs] were, but differing from the present show dogs as the wild eglantine differs from a garden rose." John Russell once said of Kennel Club dogs.
The Jack Russell has survived the changes that have occurred in the modern-day Fox Terrier because it has been preserved by working terrier enthusiasts in England for more than 100 years; it has survived on its merits as a worker. It is the foremost goal of the JRTCA that the Jack Russell continues in that tradition.
Everything about the Jack Russell is foxhunting .... coloring, conformation, character, and intelligence. The body is compact, and balanced proportions, the shoulders flat, the legs straight, and most importantly, the chest small (easily spannable by average size hands at the widest part behind the shoulders). The Jack Russell must also be flexible, this allows the terrier to follow his quarry down narrow earths. The fox is a good model for the Jack Russell-where the fox can go, so must the terrier. Although originally bred for fox hunting, the Jack Russell is a versatile working terrier to a variety of quarry including red and grey fox, raccoon and groundhog, and possum, as well as badger in the UK.
So Where did the Parson Russell Terrier & Russell terrier come from?
In 1990 the U.K. Kennel Club admitted a dog they called the "Parson Jack Russell Terrier". In 1999 The Kennel Club changed the name to the "Parson Russell Terrier," a name invented by Arthur Heinemann, for his badger digging club in 1914 ( the dogs he used were already called Jack Russell Terriers).
The American Kennel Club followed the U.K. Kennel Club in embracing both the 12-15 inch standard and the various names and name changes.
In 2005, The U.K. Kennel Club added a bit more confusion by changing the standard for the dog they were calling the Parson Russell Terrier, extending it to dogs ranging from 10 to 15 inches tall at the shoulders, the same height standard as the JRTCA and JRTCGB.
The American Kennel Club has NOT followed the U.K Kennel Club in changing the standard, instead chose to create ANOTHER breed of dog (now in its Foundation Stock Service) called the "Russell Terrier."
The breed description of this dog claims it "originated" in the United Kingdom, but that it was "developed" in Australia -- a country John Russell never visited, which had no Jack Russells at all until the very late 1960s, and where the dog in question remains a pet and show dog that never sees work. The AKC "Russell terrier" standard calls for a dog standing 10-12 inches tall at the shoulder, and to be longer than tall. It is said these dogs were bred for this look because it allowed them to work the piers for rats, however, an 11 inch balanced jack russell could do the same, or better. One has to wonder about kennel club histories, which are typically romanticized by breed clubs.
How do we sort them all out?
there are two types of white terriers: The white ones that can and do work are called Jack Russell Terriers, and they are called that out of respect for the working standard that the Reverend John Russell himself honored. Many of these white-bodied working terriers are not registered with a closed registry, but neither were any of the Reverend's own dogs.
non working kennel club dogs that happen to be white are not Jack Russells. They may be simularly bred, and go back to working dogs long past, but they themselves are not the type of dogs the Reverend kept in his kennel.They are just another white terrier being fussed over by Kennel Club patrons(think westie).
There is talk of removing the need to span a Parson in the AKC show ring, and alas, most judges don’t understand its importance, as most Kennel Club judges have never hunted or owned any of the breeds they judge. Eliminating the spanning process will doom forever the hunting ability of the parson and russell type dogs. Once the chest size is gone, it is gone forever, as is the working ability.
whether you are breeding shorties, parson, russells, or Jacks, REMEMBER the next time you begin to tell a tail to a friend, family member, or someone buying a puppy about the REAL JACK RUSSELL TERRIER, that if it didn't hunt, he didn't own it.
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