AMERICAN RAT TERRIERS
By Ed Draper
J ust 10 or 15 years ago, had you been out walking your Rat Terrier, chances are you would have heard comments like, “Oh, look, a Jack Russell!” or “Ah, yes... unquestionably a Fox Terrier!” Not so much today. At least in the experience of this writer, people are begin- ning to recognize Rat Terriers. In fact, a just couple of hours before writing this, I was walking my two RTs in a park and asked a passerby to identify the breed. She answered correctly. RTs may look a little like Jack Russells or Fox Terriers from a distance, but there are significant di ff er- ences. To name a few, other similar size breeds, such as Basenji, Fox Terrier, Toy
Fox Terrier and Parson Jack Russell Ter- riers, have straight shoulders; Rat Terriers have laid-back shoulders. Rat Terriers have a reach and drive, their front ends are dif- ferent, their legs fit under legs better and they have more slope on the pastern. Th e Rat Terrier was created in the 19th century as an e ffi cient, intuitive hunter of small vermin on farms and ranches. Immi- grants to America used a mixture of crosses of old time Fox Terriers and several other European Terriers, including Old English White Terrier, Manchester Terrier and Bull Terrier. Later on the breed was crossed with Smooth Fox Terrier, Beagle, Toy Fox Ter- rier, Whippet and Italian Greyhound and other feist breeds. Th e result was a sturdy, compact, small- to medium-sized terrier,
with speed, agility, keen intelligence and an inherent need for human contact. During the 1910s and 1920s, Rat Terri- ers were commonly seen on farms all over the United States and remained popular as pets through the 1940s. But, with the growth of mechanized farming and the use of poison to control small vermin, the breed’s numbers began to dwindle. In the 1950s the breed was maintained only by a handful of breeders. Rat Terriers success- fully re-emerged during the late 70s and 80s. Th e Rat Terrier Club of America, founded in 1995, worked for several years to refine and establish a national breed standard for the Rat Terrier as it is today. Th e breed achieved full AKC recognition in June of 2013. 4 )08 4 *()5 . "(";*/& . ": t
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