The Norfolk Terrier Is a Nice Pet Dog

This dog, Winston, won the terrier group.

This is a generally healthy breed, without exaggeration.

Created as a pet, it’s a fine little dog.

Not every breed is a basket case full of contrived histories and pretension: the Norfolk is not.

This dog's origin are well known. During the late nineteenth century some of the undergraduates at Cambridge University bought small terrier dogs from a dog dealer named Charles (Doggy) Lawrence. These small terriers, generally red or black-and-tan in color, were popular pets and were sometimes known as Trumpington Terriers -- the name of the street in Cambridge where so many students lived.

Just prior to World War I, a Norwich huntsman introduced the short-legged terriers to the USA, calling them the "Jones Terrier" after Frank Jones who was a breeder in England who exporting a lot of dogs to America at the time.

In 1932 the dog was pulled into the American Kennel Club as the "Norwich Terrier," and a drop-eared version of this same dog was declared a "new breed" and labeled a "Norfolk Terrier" in 1979.  The dog entered the show ring at Westminster that very same year.