The Jack Russell began with a milkman's terrier bought by an Oxford student
In 1819, in his final year at Oxford, a hunting-mad student named John Russell bought a small white-and-tan terrier called Trump from a local milkman. She became the model for a fox-working dog bred to be mostly white, so hunters could tell it apart from the fox it was chasing.
Russell, born in 1795, became a parson in North Devon and bred his terriers for stamina and nerve. The ideal was a dog fierce enough to flush a fox from its earth without injuring it, since killing the quarry ended the chase and was thought unsporting; Russell reportedly boasted that his dogs never tasted blood. By the 1850s they were accepted as a distinct breed. Yet no living dog can be shown to descend from Trump, because money troubles forced Russell to sell his pack more than once, and he died in 1883 owning only four old terriers that no longer bred.
The type survived through a few devoted breeders. Arthur Blake Heinemann wrote the first standard and in 1894 founded a Devon and Somerset club aimed at badger digging, which needed a different dog. Bull Terrier blood was probably added, and a shorter-legged variety appeared. After the Second World War hunting demand collapsed, and the dogs increasingly became family pets.
Recognition by kennel clubs caused a long quarrel. Enthusiasts feared show standards would breed out the working instinct, so the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America, founded in 1976, kept a broad size range, an open registry, and registered dogs only as adults. In Britain the Kennel Club recognised a taller, show-oriented version in 1990 as the Parson Jack Russell terrier, later renamed the Parson Russell Terrier. The American Kennel Club admitted the breed in 2001 over the objections of the American parent club.
The working dog remains compact: 25 to 38 centimetres at the shoulder and 6 to 8 kilograms, predominantly white with black, brown or tan markings, in a smooth, rough or broken coat. Its size matches the red fox, whose chest averages 30 to 36 centimetres across. In 2009 the Australian kennel council registered 1073 Jack Russells against just 18 Parson Russells.
Source: Jack Russell Terrier
