Black and Tan Terrier
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Black and Tan Terrier | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Country of origin | ||
| Britain | ||
| Classification and breed standards |
The English Black and Tan Terrier and the Welsh Terrier are the same breed.
The "Black and Tan Terrier" is not an extinct breed -- its name has been changed to reflect its true origins. What has passed into history is not a dog, but a label.
[edit] A History of Confusion
Many of the terrier breeds that people now lament as "extinct" never actually existed except in the minds of Victorian picture book makers.
Working Fell Terriers (non-Kennel Club working terriers from the rocky Lakeland Fells[1] region of the UK) have always been quite variable in terms of size and shape, but have always been colored terriers (tan or black or black and tan), as opposed to the white-coated "foxing terriers" preferred in the south of England. Today, black and tan Fell Terriers are sometimes referred to as "working Lakelands" or Patterdale Terriers.
With the rise of dog shows in the 1860s, a race began to give every visually distinctive type of dog a name and "improve" it through selective breeding, and terriers were at the very top of breed fancy concerns. From the colored rough-coated Fell Terriers of Cumbria and the Scottish Borders were developed several Kennel Club breeds, including the Lakeland Terrier, the Welsh Terrier, the Border Terrier and the Manchester Terrier.
In the rush to create and claim new breeds, competing groups of dog breeders sometimes came up with different names for the same dog, and it was very common for entirely fictional breed histories to be knitted together as well -- all part of a campaign to declare a new breed and create a bit of personal distinction for a dog's originator (to say nothing of sales).
For example, in 1851, the Yorkshire Terrier was also known as "the broken-haired scotch terrier." Only in 1870 was a Yorkshire Terrier firmly designated as a breed and breed name. Before then litter mates were often shown in different breed categories -- a situation that occurred with the first prize-winning Jack Russell Terrier, which had previously won shows as a "white Lakeland."
In the early 1880s, a group of English Kennel Club breeders decided to embrace a rather ponderous name and an incredible assertion for the brown and black working terrires of the North: they were, they asserted, "the root stock" of all terriers in the British Isles, and they were to be called the "Old English Broken-Haired Black and Tan."
The Welsh were outraged to have the English bring down a few of "their" dogs and claim they were an "Old English" anything. These were Welsh dogs, and the welshmen moved quickly to establish that fact. The Welsh got organized quickly, and in 1884 they held the first dog show with classes just for Welsh Terriers in Pwllheli, North Wales with 90 dogs in attendance -- a rather impressive opening shot in what was to be a brief, but furious, "terrier war." (McLennan, 1999 | Burns, 2005)
For their part, proponents of the "Old English Black and Tan" monicker could not seem to coalesce into a real club; in fact they could not even agree on a name for their supposedly "Old English" breed. Some called it the "Old English Broken-Haired Black and Tan Terrier," some the "Old English Wire Haired Black and Tan," some the "Broken-Haired Black and Tan," and some just "Black and Tan" -- a color-description that has been used about as often as "white dog" or "yellow hound".
Whatever they might have called the dogs, this new Kennel Club "breed" appears to have been a put-up job comprised of a mix of terrier types that would not breed true. In 1885 a survey of the winning dogs in the ring found that all of them were, in fact, first generation dogs, i.e. not Black and Tans out of Black and Tan sires and dams, but Black and Tans produced out of crosses with other breeds. For example, the winner of the first show in 1884 was a dog named Crib that was a cross between a blue-black rough terrier (what might be called a dark Border Terrier today) and a famous smooth fox terrier owned by L.P.C. Ashley called Corinthian.
In 1885, the Kennel Club took a Solomonic approach to the name and breed standard for the dog, featuring both dogs at their 1885 show. On April 5, 1887, however, because the English could not get organized, they were dropped from Kennel Club listings, and the new "Welsh Terrier" breed was born, perhaps propelled forward in popularity by the rise of David Lloyd George, the son of a Welsh cobbler, who himself had risen from humble origins to stand should-to-shoulder with the gentry.
The "Black and Tan" terrier is not the only breed that either never existed (or still exists today, depending on how you look at it). At the same time that one faction was pushing for the introduction of the "Old English Black and Tan Terrier" another faction was pushing for the introduction of the "English White Terrier". In fact this dog was nothing more than a "pet-quality" smooth-coated Jack Russell terrier, indistinguishable from any other smooth-coated white foxing terrier except that it might have seen a bit of toy lap dog introduced into its gene pool.
As with the Black and Tan Terrier, the Kennel Club hierarchy decided this dog was a distinction without a difference, and the dog's name was eliminated as a type -- gone almost as fast as it was created.
The notion that the "Black and Tan" terrier and the "English White" terrier are now "extinct" is due almost solely to the existence of a book by Vero Shaw entitled "The Illustrated Book of the Dog." Printed in 1881, right at the beginning of the "terrier wars," this book contains about 100 chromo-lithograph plates and engravings of dog breeds that were, at the time of publication, being put forth as distinct entities. Shaw rather optimistically included the "Black and Tan" as well as the "English White," betting that the political machinations of English Kennel Club dog breeders would prevail. (McLennan, 1999 | Burns, 2005)
He was wrong, which is how two "ancient" breeds of terrers that existed (in name only) for less than 20 years, disappeared leaving not so much as a ripple in their wake. In both cases, what went exitinct was not a dog, but a failed name and claim for a type of dog that is still very much in existence today.
[edit] References
- Burns, Patrick. American Working Terriers, 2005. ISBN 1-4116-6082-X [2]
- McLennan, Bardi. The Welsh Terrier Leads the Way, 1999. ISBN 0944875386[3]
