Natural History

From SquirrelHunterGray

For those of you who have seen me use the word “feist,” I mean a landrace terrier-type evolved on American frontier. Its ancestry is cosmopolitan. Small British terriers, whippets, Italian greyhounds, beagles, Native American dogs (like the “canoe dogs”), and probably some rustic German pinschers (which looked a lot like the Austrian pinscher) are in the background of these dogs.  I have known people to cross in really game chihuahuas with their feists, and I’ve also know them to add cur-types and Norwegian elkhounds to their strains.

To the layperson, a feist looks a lot like a Jack Russell. That’s because the ancestral fox terrier is an important ancestor of the feist, and a Jack Russell is very similar to the ancestral fox terrier.

However, there are some differences. Feists typically do not have their tails docked. Jack Russells almost always do. Feists often have prick ears, but in Jack Russells, this is faulty.

Jack Russells are earth dogs, and they are often so game that they will go to ground after prey. Feists usually aren’t that game and are usually too large follow the prey down the burrow anyway. Some of the bigger feists approach 40 pounds in weight. Feists are usually used to tree game, usually squirrels, and bark like crazy when they have the animal in a tree. They can also be used as a flushing breed for grouse. However, grouse will not fly away from a very small feist. Typically, the feist will send the grouse into the trees, where it is unsportsmanlike to shoot them.

Feists are the terrier-type of the American frontier. They have an illustrious history, which you can read about here.

I have always been into feists, because I had a bench-legged feist for a few months. This dog had been found by relatives in Eastern North Carolina, and we mistook her for a large dachshund. It was only recently that I realized what she was. She had dewclaws on her hindlegs, a tawny coat with a white spot on the chest, and black mask.

She was quite dog aggressive when she first arrived. She hated my golden retriever, but my golden retriever had a way with other dogs. Within two weeks, she broke the feist of ever wanting to fight other dogs. Of course, the golden had nothing to fear from a 25 pound feist. She was more than twice the feist’s size, and she could run circles around her.

I have no idea how the golden retriever taught the feist how to get on with other dogs. I think her confident, gentle nature was infectious, and the feist just couldn’t resist it. She turned into a very playful dog.

However, we couldn’t keep her. She liked to chase cattle, and the neighbors had a small herd.

But she did find a good home where she was taken squirrel hunting every fall.

Now, we always thought she was a dachshund cross– maybe with basset.

However, I was perusing the various strains of feist and cur that can be found in the US. In parts of the coastal South, the feists are bench-legged, that is with short, crooked legs like you used to see in dachshunds. They also have more than a slight trace of hound in them, which gives them a dachshund-like appearance.

The feist landrace where I live are usually called treeing feists, mountain feists, and rat terriers. While the rat terrier is a standardized breed and has been for over a hundred years, the other two have only recently been separated. In fact, a lot of feist breeders mix and match strains, and recently, they’ve added Jack Russell to their dogs. The distinctions between the feist and rat terrier strains where I live are quite nebulous, and I’ve more than once called a dog a rat terrier, when its owners call it a feist, and vice versa.

In fact, the arrival of the Jack Russell to this part of the world has been rather momentous for the feist. It is something akin to the arrival of the golden retriever to the Upper Midwest, where the American water spaniel had long been the preferred retrieving breed. Lots of former feist owners have taken up Jack Russells. The Jack Russell can learn to tree squirrels in the same fashion. However, they are not natural trailers like some strains of feist are.

And they are a bit more dog aggressive. One would have hard time using Jack Russells in packs, but feists are used in packs regularly. Feists are traditionally occasionally used as bear dogs. They are very good at swarming the bear and making it run. And while I do know of a pack of Jack Russell bear dogs that also are used to catch pigs, most people who keep Jack Russells find them hard to keep in packs.

The Jack Russell, though, can double as an earth dog. And it’s just as good at ratting. They are also more uniform in appearance and temperament, and you know basically what you’re going to get in a litter. Further, JRT’s are popular dogs these days, as is keeping horses for pleasure. For some reason, people who keep horses also keep Jack Russells. This tradition may have come from British-style fox hunting, but I think it is more likely that the grain used to feed the horses always attracted rats. And a terrier is good thing to have when rats are around.

Jack Russells are game. In fact, the gamest dog I ever knew was my grandpa’s farm terrier, “Cabbage.” She was exiled to his house after proving to be a miserable suburban pet. She liked to kill things, and one day, she killed the neighbor’s cat. She was an excellent groundhog dog, squirrel dog, and “anything else” dog.  He ran the Jack Russell with his beagle cross, and the two of them were a hunting duo whose exploits became legendary.

Once they got after a ground hog on the neighbor’s property, not far from his pasture where he kept cattle. He heard dogs barking, and thinking they were chasing his cows, he ran out to see what was going on. He discovered the beagle baying at the side of his barn near a pile of rocks. Cabbage was standing on top of the rock pile, yippiung with all her might.

When cleared the rock pile to see what they were barking at, he discovered a large groundhog. No soon had the animal in the rock pile been exposed, Cabbage leaped upon it. She grabbed the ten pound animal by the throat and within two minutes, the groundhog was dead. Now, that doesn’t seem too strange until you realize cabbage weighed only about 12 pounds.

Rat terriers and feists of that size might tree a groundhog or bay it up in the rock pile, but very few would launch such a daring attack and actually kill the animal. Even that old 30 pound beagle wasn’t brave enough for such a move.

These stories began to circulate, and it wasn’t long before, I noticed fewer and fewer feists at farm houses. And I noticed more and more Jack Russells. Further, feist/JRT crosses were becoming common as squirrel dogs.

So right now, I’m actually watching a breed or type replacement in my area. I hope the feists can withstand the pressure that the little earth dogs are putting on them. A feist is not a Jack Russell, and some people surely prefer the level of gameness in the feist to that of the Jack Russell. Further, the feist is more multipurpose, and it is easier to run as a trail dog. But Jack Russells have everyone beguiled these days. I hope that they don’t wind up replacing the feists.