Jack Russell working as a retriever:
“Get dat duck, boy!”
***
One of the most interesting asides to retriever history is the use of terrier crosses to use for retrievers.
Stonehenge (John Henry Walsh) writes about terrier crosses doing quite well as retrievers in The Dogs of Great Britain, America, and Other Countries (originally published in the 1880s):
The Terrier cross [that is used as a retriever] is either with the beagle or the pointer, the former being that which I have chiefly used with advantage, and the latter being recommended by Mr. Colquhoun in his “Lochs and Moors.” He gives a portrait of one used by himself, which he says was excellent in all respects; and, from so good a sportsman, the recommendation is deserving of all credit. This dog was about 22 inches high, with a little of the rough coat of the Scotch terrier, combined with the head and general shape of the pointer. The sort I have used is, I believe, descended from the smooth white English terrier and the true old beagle; the nose and style of hunting proclaiming the hound descent, and the voice and appearance showing the preponderance of the terrier cross. These dogs are small, scarcely ever exceeding 10 lbs. in weight, and with difficulty lifting a hare, so that they are not qualified to retrieve “fur” any great distance. They must, therefore, be followed when either a hare or pheasant is sought to be recovered.
They are mute in “questing,” and very quiet in their movements, readily keeping at heel, and backing the pointers steadily while they are “down charge,” for as long a time as may be required; and when they go to their game they make no noise, as is too often done by the regular retriever. They do not carry so well as the larger dog, but in all other respects they are his equal, or perhaps superior. Owing to their small size they are ad* missible to the house, and being constant companions are more easily kept under command; besides which, they live on the scraps of the house, while the large retriever must be kept tied up at the keeper’s, and costs a considerable sum to pay for his food (pg.167-68).
Hugh Dalziel’s British Dogs (also dates to the 1880’s) includes a description of Scottish and Skye terriers been used as retrievers:
Many gentlemen in the north of Scotland kept a pack of terriers for otter hunting, and some do so still; and many at the present day use them for rabbit hunting, at which sport no dog can equal them, as they never get too excited, and are always ready to obey the commands of their master. In close creeping ‘whins’ or ‘ furze’ they will go through the rabbit runs like ferrets, and Mr. Bunny is either obliged to bolt or be killed. They are capable of being trained to retrieve, and it is a very pretty thing to see one of these little dogs carrying a partridge, woodcock, or snipe. They will take to the water like an otter, and give excellent sport when flapper shooting. In fact, in my day I have seen a great many, and used a few of the so-called retrievers; but give me a well-broken Highland terrier [one of the ancestors of the Scottish terrier] in preference to any retriever I know, and if there is game to be had I should have little fear in losing a wounded bird or quadruped if it kept above ground.
Rawdon Lee describes using terriers and terrier crosses as retrievers in his A History and Description of Modern Dogs (Sporting Division) (1894), which describes a different terrier cross the Colquhoun text:
John Colquhoun, in his ” Moor and the Loch,” descants in praiseworthy terms of his wildfowl retriever, that was a cross between a water spaniel and a terrier. In appearance not unlike a modern Airedale terrier, it was, doubtless, one of the most useful dogs ever bred, and in a boat would do better than a larger and curlier animal, as he would bring less water in with him when retrieving his master’s ducks. Such dogs are, however, liable to be hardmouthed; still, I have myself owned terriers, and have one now—an Irishman—that will carry an egg in a cup without breaking either, or a piece of tissue paper without soiling it in the least. But such dogs as these have taken naturally to their work, and no amount of training would persuade or teach them to do what they like to perform of their own accord (pg. 213).
In the Lee also describes a bull terrier named Sam in A History and Description of Modern Dogs of Great Britain and Ireland (The Terriers) (1897):
The puppy was christened “Sam,” for a long time he was my constant companion, and became an adept at hunting rats by the riverside, a capital rabbiter, and as good a retriever as most dogs. He would perform sundry tricks, find money hidden away, and could be sent back a mile for anything—a glove, a stick—that had been left behind (27).
Of course, there are many mentions of Airedale terriers as retrievers that are too numerous to mention. Airedales have a sort of multipurpose hunting dog quality to them that they have been use to hunt everything from quail to grizzly bears. The aforementioned Irish terrier, the Kerry blue,and the soft-coated wheaten terrier all have been used as retrievers. Kerry blues and the soft-coated wheaten terriers have some relationship to the poodle-type water dogs, either from the indigenous poodle-type of the British Isles or from Iberian water dogs that were left behind by the Spanish Armada as it escaped off the coast of Ireland following its defeat by Queen Elizabeth I’s navy (a good story but one that is very difficult to prove.)
I know of at least one modern terrier, a Jack Russell, that lives to play fetch. He could have been trained to be a retriever, for he has much more instinct than my non-retrieving golden. He has a toy pheasant that he loves to carry, and because he is so easily trained, it wouldn’t take much for him to learn how to retrieve birds.
As some of these texts point out, using a smaller dogs as a retriever has advantages. However, only one modern retriever breed is of medium size. All the rest are large dogs that typically weigh in excess of 55 pounds. One wonders why these terrier-retrievers never made such a splash.
Perhaps it was the fact that wavy and flat-coated retrievers were so promoted by the doyens of the British dog fancy, most notably S.E. Shirley, the first president of the Kennel Club.
Perhaps it just became fashionable to have stylish, uniform brace or two of wavy or flat-coated retrievers working an estate shoot, and no one wanted to use some terrier or terrier mongrel for the task. It was probably fashion, rather than necessity, that stopped the terrier retriever.
You must be right. In a way it was about fashion – or rather, the “new technology” of hunting.
Retrieving really is nothing unusual. Any canis can do it.
Besides the terrier, there is a reference to the mastiff cross as a good retriever.
My friends have German Hunting Terriers. They are good swimmers and never get bored with retrieving a ball in the water.
One of the sections on retrievers I read today said that a “half-bred bulldog” could do the work quite well.
Having a properly soft mouth is something that requires ‘on purpose’ breeding, doesn’t it? At least that’s what I’ve always heard.
Both breeding and training.
It can be trained. Dogs know how to bite hard or bite softly. They do it all the time when they play.
But golden retrievers are known for their soft mouths and they tend to be very poor at killing things, if you ever wanted one to do that. My dog carried a live feral meat chicken a half mile.
Interesting post. I own a Jack Russell Terrier who is a great retriever and delivers nicely to hand. I also own an English Cocker, who naturally is an amazing retriever.
I can see how the terrier could be used for field work, but noting the difference between my two dogs I can also see why one would be more successful in this sort of work versus the other. Of course, the terrier is terribly hard mouthed, but what really strikes me is his lack of endurance compared to the spaniel. The terrier runs hard and fast, but tires much faster; while the spaniel keeps a slower pace, but is the one who can and will work all day if given the chance. At least between my dogs, the terrier is the sprinter and the spaniel is the long distance runner.
The terrier is also an awful water retriever. Swimming requires too much effort from his body, which obviously was not built for swimming (short legs, heavy compact body, practically no neck). He’s a slow swimmer, tires quickly, and coughs up water half the time hes in there, whereas the spaniel glides like a seal. Also, the terrier has the incorrect coat type for a water retriever. It takes him forever to dry, but water slides off the spaniel’s coat. My JRT also loses heat far too quickly to be a decent water retriever. His small size and incorrect coat type are probably to blame for this, but my spaniel only outweighs him by 20 lbs and is still happily working water retrieves out of the Chesapeake Bay in January.
I can certainly see terrier cross with appropriate traits making a fine working retriever, but even with proper training my Jack Russel just does not possess those traits that would allow him to excel in the field.
What coat type is your JRT?
At the Born to Track Blog, they have trained wire-haired, working-type Dachshunds to retrieve from the water:
http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2009/07/water-dachshunds-yes-they-can-swim-and.html
He’s a smooth-coated. Great for mud and dirt, which just needs dusting off him, but his coat sucks up water. The spaniel’s coat doesn’t need much attention after swimming, except for the leg feathering which we do help along with a towel. The JRT, on the other hand, practically needs to be wrung out like a sponge.
My JRT loves the water, but I just can’t trust him to take more than a few retrieves into the bay unless he’s wearing a life vest. I’m not saying that short-legged breeds can’t swim, but they certainly can’t swim as well and as effortlessly as those that were bred for it.
The retriever instinct/ability obviously goes way back–my first wolf hybrid regularly caught and killed all manner of critters, and he always(at first) brought his kills to me–I often butchered them and kept parts for myself(I was rather financially challenged at the time) and gave him the rest–this included squirrels and groundhogs and birds of all kinds. So the movie “The Journey Of Nattie Gan” is not so far-fetched, actually! This excellent retrieval of small game did change as my pack grew in size–then it became a matter of competition, and if something was caught, I had to hurry to even be able to identify what critter it was before it was torn apart and quickly bolted among numerous canines!
One of the problems with the terriers as retrievers/gundogs was their quarrelsomeness with other dogs. The British retrievers often worked in pairs or groups and were nearly always kenneled in multiples. One of the reasons that modern retrievers have the amiable personalities that they do.
Kym mae’s comments about endurance and coat type are very pertinent as well. The retrievers, like the spaniels, needed to be able to work over all sorts of terrain, often for hours at a time, and often in the wet. Although it’s possible that the old-time terriers had a harder, less profuse coat than those of today, still, they didn’t have the quality of undercoat that the retrievers did.
The friendliness with other dogs is something that became more important as retrievers were trialled. As dogs from different homes and estates were brought together, it was necessary that they not fight with each other. This really hurt some of the curlies of the time period, which were a bit into fighting.
Terriers, in my experience, tend to be okay with dogs they know, but they still scrap every once in a while. Socialized or not, some do enjoy a bit of a fight with strange dogs.
In Scott and Fuller’s “Genetics and Social Behavior of the Dog”, they note that they could not leave litters of Wire Fox Terriers together past several weeks of age, or two or more would gang up on another and kill it. This was the phase of their research where some litters were kept in isolation in large enclosed areas, without any human contact.
On the other hand, the Beagles and Cocker Spaniels lived together quite well.
Scott and Fuller’s studies are the basis for almost all of our modern-day knowledge of dog behavior, the value of socialization, “critical periods”, and more. Their cross-breeding studies are extremely interesting. Included the terriers, Beagles, Cocker, Shetland Sheepdogs, and Basenjis. Quite fascinating.
That is certainly the tendency in terriers, but it can be modified through socialization and training.
I’ve known several working type JRT’s that could get on well with other dogs– provided they got to scrap with groundhogs regularly.
Exactly — it is the critical importance of socialization at the right ages, and related training, that was the “epiphany” of Scott & Fuller’s work. Which was brought to the non-scientific dog world largely through Clarence Pfaffenberger’s work, published in dog magazines and in his book “The New Knowledge of Dog Behavior”, as well as his work with the Guide Dog schools in improving their success rates.
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