Border Terrier
History
Though some claim an ancient history for the Border Terrier,
no breed of terrier is very old and the Border Terrier
is no exception, first appearing around 1860, and being
so undifferentiated from other rough-coated terriers that
they were not admitted to the UK Kennel Club until 1920
-- after first being rejected in 1914.
The true history of the Border Terrier is exceedingly
short and simple despite all the efforts to muddy the water
with talk of Walter Scott, Bedlingtons, Gypsies, and dark
dogs seen in the muddy corners of obscure oil paintings.
The Border Terrier was a kennel type of rough-coated terrier
of the Fell type bred by the Robson family. John Robson
founded the Border Hunt in Northumberland in 1857 along
with John Dodd of Catcleugh who hunted his hounds near
the Carter Fell. It was the grandsons of these two gentlemen
-- Jacob Robson and John Dodd -- who tried to get the Border
Hunt's little terrier-type popularized by the Kennel Club.
The first Kennel
Club Border Terrier ever registered was "The
Moss Trooper," a dog sired by Jacob Robinson's Chip
in 1912 and registered in the Kennel Club's Any Other Variety
listing in 1913. The Border Terrier was rejected for formal
Kennel Club recognition in 1914, but won its slot in 1920,
with the first standard being written by Jacob Robinson
and John Dodd. Jasper Dodd was made first President of
the Club.
For a terrier "bred to follow the horses" the
Border Terrier does not appear to have been overly-popular
among the mounted hunts. The Border Terrier Club of Great
Britain[2] lists only 190 working certificates for all
borders from 1920 to 2004 -- a period of 84 years. Considering
that there were over 250 mounted hunts operating in the
UK during most of this period (there are about 185 mounted
hunts today), this is an astoundingly small number of certificates
for a period that can be thought of as being over 15,000
hunt-years long. Even if one concedes that borders were
worked outside of the mounted hunts, and not all borders
got certificates that were recorded by the Border Terrier
Club of Great Britain, the base number is so slow that
adding a generous multiplier does not change the broad
thrust of the conclusion, which is that Border Terriers
never really had a "hay day" for work.
The relative lack of popularity of the Border Terrier
as a working terrier is borne out by a careful review of
Jocelyn Lucas' book Hunt and Working Terriers (1931). In
Appendix I Lucas provides a table listing 119 UK hunts
operating in the 1929-1930 season, along with the types
of earths found (sandy, rocky, etc.) and the type of terrier
used.
Only 16 hunts
said they used Borders or Border crosses, while about
80 hunts said they preferred Jack Russells,
white terriers or some type of fox terrier. Lakelands and
Sealyhams, or crosses thereof, were mentioned by some,
with quite a few noting "no preference"(hunts
are double-counted if they mention two kinds of terriers
or crosses of two types).
The Border Terrier does not appear to be faring any better
today, with even fewer workers found in the field than
in Lucas' times. In fact, there is not a single Border
Terrier breed book that shows a border terrier with its
fox -- an astounding thing considering the age of the breed
and the ubiquitous nature of the camera from the 1890s
forward.
To say that the Border is not popular in the field does
not mean that it has fallen out of favor in the show ring
or in the pet trade, however! Border terriers are among
the top 10 breeds in the UK Kennel Club, and nearly 1,000
border terriers were registered with the American Kennel
Club last year -- up about 100 dogs from the previous year.
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