Meet the Jack Russell Terrier

We Jack Russell Terriers are famous for our high energy, smarts, and tenacious attitude – we can’t help it, it’s in our DNA! Even though we’re small dogs, we were bred to be working dogs (fox hunting dogs, to be exact). In early 19th century England, a pastor and fox-hunting enthusiast named Reverend John Russell wanted to breed a little dog that could help him on the hunt. My earliest ancestor was Trump, an English White Terrier who was so good at helping Reverend Russell hunt foxes that the Reverend started a breeding program to create the pawfect fox terrier. By the mid-1800s, my early ancestors were pawesome at flushing foxes out of their hiding spaces – that’s why we’re such good diggers (even though you may not like that)!

Another English hunter, Arthur Blake Heinemann, wanted to breed a badger-hunting terrier. He used some of Russell’s terriers and formed the Parson Jack Russell Terrier Club. That’s how two similar strains of fox terrier – the Jack Russell Terrier and the Parson Russell Terrier – came about. For a long time, my cousins and I weren’t considered separate breeds, but things began to get complicated after World War II. Humans didn’t really need hunting dogs anymore, so my ancestors were bred more as companion dogs, and were often crossed with other small dog breeds like Corgis and Chihuahuas. These companion terriers were called “Shorty Jacks” or Russell Terriers.

In 1976, a JRT lover named Alisa Crawford formed the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America. When the American Kennel Club was considering recognizing the Jack Russell Terrier in the late 1990s, Crawford and the other members of the JRTCA said, no way! They wanted to keep our working dog characteristics, not turn us into show dogs. That’s why we aren’t an AKC recognized-breed while our cousins, the Parson Russell Terrier and the Russell Terrier, are.