One of these dogs still looks like this. Is it a coincidence that the modern dogs that do not work do not look right? I do not think so!
The show ring pretender will tell you that "form is function," but that is bullshit mumbled by people whose own dogs have no function other than to chase ribbons.
In the world of the working terrier, the hole and the wild animal in the den pipe are the test.
And it's not just a test of the dog, is it? Here's a shovel.... start digging!
Theory crashes pretty quickly in the hedge.
Looking at the pictures, I'm not sure which dog still looks like their picture. Certainly not the fox terrier.
ReplyDeleteDoes the real fox-working dog of today look just like the Fox Terrier seen here? You bet.
ReplyDeleteThe Fox Terrier of that era (1890) is the Jack Russell Terrier of today, and it looks just like what is pictured here (thought generally with a longer and stronger tail).
The back story here is that Kennel Club was about to ruin the breed with the rise of Crufts, which is why only a few years later the term "Jack Russell " was coined to differentiate the TRUE fox worker from the pretender increasingly found in the ring.
Today there are white foxing terriers (Jack Russells) and black foxing terriers (Patterdales) and brown foxing terriers (Fell Terriers and Plummers, and some Border), but they are all really the same dog, defined by the WORK and not by the flapping scrap of paper.
The same is true of the Pit Bull. Show me the dog and what it does, and I will tell you what it is. It is not the Kennel Club that defines the breed, but the work -- same as for Border Collies.
Pet bull, or pit bull?
Border collie, or Barbie collie?
The Kennel Club "fox terrier" is (mostly) a transvestite terrier, same as the other breeds seen here. But is the dog pictures a foxing terrier of the type still found in the field working fox? Yes, and it still exists as a worker with (non-KC) pedigrees carefully maintained and outcrossing allowed as needed.
One could argue, of course, that the other dogs still exist as throwbacks and sports found in pounds, but then these dogs are not actually found in the field, are they? The closest might be the Dandie in the form of the wire-haired dachshund. Not many of those in the field, but a few!
I have photos of my grandfather's Fox Terriers from the 1930s and 1940s; they look just like the one in your illustration. Of course, he was a hunter - I think show dogs already looked different at that time.
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