Seagull Limited

09/03/2024

Dogs are getting excited, ready to work

08/28/2024

Seagull Sail…….Learning about Go To Ground Tunnels

08/28/2024

ISO
Ruffland Mid size Malibu speckled kennel
Seeking 2 please

08/22/2024

Seagull Raya/ Snowcrest Death Dealer puppies on their way to Utah. Terry, Natalie and Tate Hanson welcome to the Seagull family!

08/07/2024

Upcoming activities for Gulf Coast JRTN

Fall is right around the corner even though it's still searing hot here. Some dates for pre planning the upcoming playdays and trials.

08/06/2024

Good information for starting out…..

08/04/2024

It seems appropriate some days…..

07/05/2024

Today’s project…..

06/27/2024

THE JACK RUSSELL: HISTORY WITH A WARNING

How did the Kennel Club come to add the "Parson Russell Terrier" to its roles 100 years after the Reverend John Russell died, and what does this story tell us about the role of all-breed registries in the world of honest working dogs?

▪️The Rise and Fall of the Fox Terrier▪️

The Reverend John Russell was born in 1795 and acquired his first white foxing terrier in 1815 from a milkman. Russell’s claim to fame is not that he invented the fox terrier, but that he was “the old man of terrier work” when the Kennel Club was founded in 1873.

Like most new organizations, the Kennel Club began on shaky legs, and sought to promote itself by trying to associate itself with big names as quickly as possible. Though John Russell had retired and sold off his hounds a few years earlier, he was still famous, and so he was tapped to judge fox terriers at the Crystal Palace Show of 1874.

Apparently, Russell did not much like what he saw, however, for he never agreed to judge a Kennel Club show again, and he refused to let his own dogs be registered.

Russell later described his own dogs as:

"True terriers…but differing from the present show dogs as the wild eglantine differs from a garden rose."

Working terrier men of the era agreed, and they too stayed away from the shows to the extent that by 1893 Rawdon Lee, author of Modern Dogs, noted the absence of hunt terriers in the ring:

"[Those terriers] best adapted for hard work… are cross-bred, hardy dogs, specially trained for the purpose, although many of the 'pedigree' animals will do similar duty to the best of their ability, but their 'pedigree' and no doubt inbreeding to a certain extent, has made them constitutionally and generally weaker than their less blue-blooded cousins."

Bam! The Kennel Club Fox Terrier had ceased to be a working dog in less than 20 years time!

▪️The Rise of the Jack Russell Terrier▪️

Dog dealers selling working terriers at the turn of the Twentieth Century sought to differentiate their working dogs from the non-working and over-large terriers paraded at Kennel Club shows.

Advertisements for working dogs no longer called them “fox terriers,” but instead offered up "Jack Russell" terriers, the name Robert Leighton was already calling them in his 1910 book, Dogs and All About Them.

By 1930, a survey of over 100 mounted hunts in the U.K. found "Jack Russell" terriers listed, as well as "white hunt terriers" and "Devonshire working terriers". When the term “fox terrier” was used, it was carefully proceeded by the words "cross," "cross bred," "non-pedigree," or even "mongrel".

No one was using a pure-bred Kennel Club dog!

World War II saw a decline in the mounted hunts, but things roared back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, as easy access to cars made it easier to get out into the countryside.

In 1974, the Jack Russell Terrier Club of Great Britain was founded "to promote and preserve the working terrier known as the Jack Russell." In 1976, its U.S. analog was created -- the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America.

Both clubs have prospered and stuck to their original mission, and today the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America remains the largest Jack Russell terrier club in the world.

▪️The Kennel Club Steps In▪️

With an increase in the popularity of the Jack Russell terrier, a push was initiated to pull the “old” fox-working terrier into The Kennel Club.

In 1990 this goal was finally achieved with representatives from several smaller Jack Russell Clubs meeting to draw up a conformation "standard" that called for a dog standing 12-15 inches at the withers. The new dog was to be called the “Parson Jack Russell Terrier," a name invented special for the occassion.

The origin of the new Kennel Club standard is a bit vague. It is said to be adopted from one originally written by Arthur Heinemann, an American-born badger digging man and dog dealer from the 1920s, but no evidence to support this claim has ever been presented.

Gerald Jones, who hunted with Heinemann and knew him well, says Heinemann did not value the kind of larger dog saluted at the top of the Kennel Club’s standard:

"He always said there was nothing a good fourteen inch terrier could do that a good eleven inch terrier couldn't do better…. Some of his best workers were no more than ten inches."

And, of course, Heinemann, like every other digging man, was opposed to Kennel Club registration. Jones quotes Heinemann directly on this point:

"[I am] very much opposed to the modern show terrier and his type. Once you begin to breed it for show type, you lose the working qualities upon which you pride those terriers. I have been, I might say, the protagonist of the terrier bred for sport as against the terrier bred for show. I have no interest in cup hunting."

Russell and Heinemann may not have had any interest in cup hunting, but the Kennel Club hierarchy did, and so a few syncophants were rounded up, and the thing was done.

In 1999 The Kennel Club changed the name of the dog to the "Parson Russell Terrier" -– another name invented wholecloth and without historical roots.

The American Kennel Club followed the U.K. Kennel Club in embracing both the 12-15 inch standard and in embracing the various invented names and name changes.

In 2005, The Kennel Club added a bit more confusion to the story by changing the standard for the dog they were now calling the Parson Russell Terrier, extending it to encompass dogs ranging from 10 to 15 inches tall at the shoulders.

The American Kennel Club, however, has not followed the U.K Kennel Club in changing the standard, instead chosing to simply create another breed of dog (now in its Foundation Stock Service) called the "Russell Terrier."

The breed description of this dog claims it "originated" in the United Kingdom, but that it was "developed" in Australia -- a country which John Russell never so much as visited, which had no Jack Russells at all until the very late 1960s, and where the dog in question remains a pet and show dog that never sees a moment's work!

▪️Only Two Types▪️

How to sort it all out, then?

I think simplicity is best.

In my opinion, there are only two types of terriers in the world: those that work and those that don't.

The white ones that work, and which come from a long line of workers, are called Jack Russell Terriers, and they are called that out of respect for the working standard that the Reverend John Russell himself honored throughout his life.

What are we to make of the Kennel Club dogs? Simple: They are not Jack Russell terriers.

They are not Jack Russells in name, nor are they Jack Russell terriers in terms of performing regular honest work.

They are simply another small terrier, same as so many in the Kennel Club.

There is nothing wrong with that, but there is nothing very special either.

The good news is that with the name changes, no one will ever confuse these Kennel Club pretenders with the real thing – the real Jack Russell Terrier.

▪️A Lesson To Learn▪️

Is there a larger lesson to be gleaned from this history?

Indeed, I think there is, and it is this: No breed of working dog has ever been made in the show ring, while every working breed pulled on to the Kennel Club’s roles has been wecked or divided.

This, I think, is history with a warning!

—————

John Russell illustration by Kevin Brockbank
for the May 2011 issue of Dogs Today where this piece first appeared.

06/26/2024

Seagull Everest

06/12/2024

Seagull Kennel JRTCA
Clear/Normal DM, SCA, PLL. Shots, worming, microchip. Contract and Guarantees
College Station, TX

06/07/2024

Gulf Coast Jack Russell Club is having an Introduction to Dock Diving in Houston, Texas

Information on the attached photo!

06/04/2024

Another Lure run at MOE…. Super fun, the dogs love it!

06/04/2024

This is lure at MOE

06/04/2024

Seagull Everest (Evie) and Seagull Sarge, lost their humans last week and are seeking a new family. House broke, sleep in the bed, easy keepers. Neutered male, spayed female.
In College Station, TX

06/02/2024

Seagull Kennels
A puddle of JRTCA puppies

05/28/2024

Part of MOE fun! Great times for dogs and their servants!

05/09/2024

Starting on August 1, all dogs entering the U.S. (including those that left the U.S. and are returning, and regardless of the country they are coming from) must be:
• healthy upon arrival
• at least 6 months of age
• microchipped
• accompanied by a CDC Dog Import Form receipt and required vaccination and veterinary documents.

Additional requirements may apply depending on where the dog has been in the last 6 months and whether or not the dog was vaccinated in the United States.

Use CDC’s Q&A tool (the CDC “DogBot”) to determine what rules apply to your dog: https://bit.ly/2rww2bq

05/06/2024

Lure course from two years ago at Angela’s Playday. Seagull will be getting a lure machine soon to play with here in College Station….

05/06/2024

Seagull Malibu
Seagull Hobie
05.03.24
JRTCA Clear/ Normal DM, SCA, PLL 4 Males 2 Females
College Station, TX

05/06/2024

Seagull Jetty
Snowcrest Death Dealer
04.28.24
JRTCA clear normal SCA, DM, PLL
3 males, 3 females
College Station, TX

04/22/2024

Well done! Our decisions for our animals welfare should always be first!

Statement from Skylar Wireman on withdrawing Tornado from today’s final round at FEI World Cup Finals:

I have made the very difficult decision to withdraw from the final round of the Longines FEI Jumping World Cup Finals. Tornado, my horse is 100% well, sound and fit and I would like to explain why I have withdrawn. I came here knowing this would be an incredible learning experience and hoped to be competitive. I am at the start of what I want to be a long and successful career as a jumping athlete and to compete against the very best in the world has been an honor, and I have learned so much. I hope I have proven that I deserved to be here and that I will give my all to jumping clear rounds and being a winner. While I want to ride every round and grow my experience level, I care deeply about my horses. I love Tornado more than anything.

I came here with a horse that is 10 and is very much still learning and his welfare will always be at the very heart of every decision I make. Without our horse we are nothing, and they put their complete trust in us. Tornado was a rock star in the 1st Round of the World Cup Finals finishing 10th amongst the legends of our sport. He jumped his heart out in the 2nd Round on Thursday. Tornado is inexperienced at this level and having studied our round on Thursday and talked extensively to my coach and many others whose opinions and experience I have high regard for, I will not risk his welfare or his future in the sport by asking Tornado to jump a course he might not be quite ready for. The course today will be big and technical but fair for this level of competition: I knew it would be but I knew Tornado and I had the potential to jump it; that potential is still there but we need just a little more experience to realize it.

I am so grateful to those that have supported Tornado, to my family Shayne Berridge-Wireman , my groom Alicia Marie, my coach Peter Wylde and the USEF who have put a warm blanket of support around all of us here in Riyadh. I look forward to representing the team in the future!

04/17/2024

Malibu, having fun playing with her fox toy

04/02/2024

Seagull Raya

04/02/2024

Seagull Hobie

04/02/2024

Seagull Malibu

04/02/2024

Seagull Jetty

04/02/2024

Snowcrest Death Dealer

04/02/2024

Seagull Sand

03/04/2024

Seagull Kennel ready for a fun weekend at Gulf Coast JRTCA trial
Seagull Sand
Seagull Raya
Seagull Keel