Types Matter, Breeds Don't

I was asked whether I would let a black terrier cross one of my white terriers.

Sure, I answered.

Of course, the issue was couched within the framework of breeds… but I think the issue becomes clearer when you couch it in terms of coat color, don’t you? Isn’t coat color how so many breeds are defined?

Look at the eggs, above. Quite a beautiful picture.

And yet, make those eggs *work* in an omlette pan, and you can’t tell the difference. In fact, in the pan you can’t even tell the difference between a chicken egg and an ostrich egg.

Which is not to say there aren’t differences between a chicken egg and an ostrich egg. The latter is 24 of the former in volume. Size matters. And that’s true in the world of working terriers too, which was why my qualified answer was “sure… if he’s small enough.”

Of course, a chicken egg is different from a frog’s egg, or a turtle’s egg. The same is true in the world of dogs where a working terrier is distinct from a sled dog, which is distinct from a setter.

But within *types*, breeds are often artificial distinctions without much of a difference. The quail in the field does not care about the dog’s color any more than the fox cares about the lay of a terrier’s ears or tail.