If you want to know how a breed becomes a breed, just watch what is happening with Jack Russell terriers. Currently, there are at least four breeds that are being developed off that root stock, and there are two, the wire fox and smooth fox terrier, that already have diverged significantly from that ancestral white hunt terrier. (Throw in Plummer terriers, and you have a mess!)
In the US, there are JRTCA Jack Russells, which are performance-bred. There are Parson Russell terriers, which are the show version of that same dog and are recognized by AKC and the Kennel Club (of the United Kingdom). This week, it was reported that KC (of the United Kingdom) was going to recognize the working Jack Russell as a show dog. The Parson Russells are all derived from Jack Russells that belonged to people who wanted to turn it into a show a dog, and now the working stock is being brought into the mess.
So out of this white hunt terrier, two breeds were created when the KC recognized smooth and wire fox terriers, and they are now very different from the original dog. A third breed was created when the Parson Russell was recognized, and a fourth will be recognized when the working Jack Russell becomes a show dog.
This is quite destructive to gene pools. These breeds exist in the first place because of politics, and the current division exists solely because of politics.
The good news about this scheme is that it won’t swamp the Jack Russell breed in any way, shape or from. The hard little bastards that are the JRTCA dogs will never be registered in the AKC. There are just too many people who have them that hate the modern dog fancy. In the civic religion of that kind of Jack Russell, bashing the big kennel clubs is catechism.
And people will still breed the nonstandard JRTs, where you get long and short-legged dogs in the same litter, as well as solid red and black ones, because that’s the subculture that breeds JRTs. This is why all these dogs don’t look a like.
Whoever marketed little mixed terriers as Jack Russells was a genius. Yes, I know there are purists in the JRTCA who hate these dogs, but the truth is no one really cares what these people have to say. Most people don’t want a hard little bastard terrier. Most people want a nice little dog, like this one:
The dog world is about politics, and it is about absurdities. It is about making molehills out of picayune differences.
I seriously doubt that the Kennel Club will be getting many registrations of Jack Russells, which even today are crossed with Lakelands and red fells and Patterdales. I’ve never actually seen a bona fide Parson Russell terrier, but I’ve seen plenty of Jack Russells.
If the Parson Russell terrier didn’t wind up homogenizing the entire Jack Russell breed, then the KC’s recognition of a Jack Russell breed certainly won’t.
The real JRT people (of all types) are aware of this game.
It just won’t work.
Dear Retrieverman, I’m commenting here because you closed your other comments. When googling pre-columbian dog images, yours comes up. Trying to learn a little about this means googling the other dogs you mention. Then you get to “April Fools”. This is a waste of time and makes the subject even more confusing to a casual curious reader. I’ve never had a dog, but you seem to love them quite a bit, so why would you spread misinformation?
Because I was born with this thing called a sense of humor, and lots of people who write blogs like this do April Fools.
Beware of anything which doesn’t provide citation.
That’s the easiest way to weed out misinformation.
I have a Jack Russell Terrier Her name is Jezzie Not entirely sure there’s not a hint of Scottie in there somewhere and nor do I care. She is a beautiful intelligent little dog.
Mo’Tran is a hot Cajun bitch.
This kind of absurdity also occurs in the cat fancy, albeit to a lesser extent. Two notable examples of where this kind of absurdity occurs in purebred cats are the Siamese and the Persian.
With the Persian, there is the modern or Ultra Persian, the traditional or Doll Face Persian, The Himalayan, and the Exotic Shorthair. The Ultra Persian has a flat, pushed in face, the traditional Persian has a muzzle more like the average moggie, the Himalayan is basically a Persian with a colorpointed pattern like a Siamese, and the Exotic Shorthair is basically a shorthaired Ultra Persian.
With the Siamese, there is the modern Siamese, the traditional or Applehead Siamese, the classic Siamese or Thai, the Oriental Shorthair, and the Balinese. The modern Siamese is sleek and lanky with slender legs, the traditional Siamese looks more robust or semi cobby, the Thai is somewhere in between the traditional and modern Siamese in body shape, the Oriental Shorthair is basically a modern Siamese without the colorpoint pattern, and the Balinese is basically a longhaired modern Siamese. Both Thais and traditional Siamese look basically like standard shaped moggies with colorpointed patterns.
Another example is with Abyssinians and Somalis, which are slim, standard-shaped, unpatterned ticked tabby purebred cats that come in ruddy/usual (equivalent to brown tabby), grey/blue, sorrel (equivalent to cinnamon tabby), and fawn. Abys are the shorthaired one and Somalis are the longhaired version.
Hard little bastards indeed. Over 15 years ago I took care of my friend’s two JRTs while she was on vacation. I’m still recovering.
You’ve got it a bit back to front. Will write in detail later…
A century ago, a somewhat similar situation in retrievers. A litter could contain pups of different coat types and colors. Several types have disappeared, subsumed into modern lines– who today knows of the Norfolk, the Northern Irish, the English Retriever varieties? Or the Tweed Water Dog, for that matter, or the English Water Spaniel. It might be fun to revive some of those old sorts, just for the heck of it.
And he same existed with land spaniels too. Cockers, fields, English springers, Welsh springers, and Norfolks all in the same family.
I wonder why the JRT club in Britain didn’t trademark the breed like the JRTCA? Probably would have prevented this unless under their terms.
Wouldn’t had mattered. Jack Russell Terrier is recognized by FCI long before JRTCA thought about trademarking it.
And secondly, a lot of trademarks lost their protective nature when people start using them beyond their scope– for instance Kleenax became a substitute for tissue paper.
That’s why Google was so worried about people using the company’s name as a verb since they could potentially lose any teeth in trademark battles.
But for most dog breeds, it is rare for the name to be commonly used as a verb.
I have come across it only a few times. A few nineteenth century texts call flushing dog work “spanieling.”
“Never let your retriever spaniel.”
Conveniently ignored the Kleenax example?
The problem with JRT is that the noun itself have been used for well over a few decades by everyone and not just terriermen. It’s also been used to describe terrier-like dogs owned by pet-owners.