Have I got this right? Any hound-marked, non-KC regd. rough or smooth terrier, with long or short or medium legs can be termed Jack Russel - as this describes a 'type' rather than a breed....and these adorable little critters can be working terriers bred for earth work, or ratting, or predominantly as pets......and can have bits of other working type terriers in their ancestory... Although.....the IKC does recognise the Jack Russel and in some countries there are Jack Russels that breed true to type and bred as a pedigree breed..... And.....many moons ago, there was a country parson who was also a dab hand at breeding terriers to work with fox hunts (i.e. fox terriers) and possibly also a whiz at marketing, because the hound-marked working terriers became known way beyond his home county as Jack Russels.... But.....the KC recognised Wire and Smooth Fox Terriers are dogs that have been standardised (recognised and bred to a breed standard) and as such, the first attempt to recognise and standardize the 'Fox Terrier' Then.........back in - was it the 80's.....a group of enthusiasts established a strain of terrier that resembled Parson R's line and was based on a blueprint of the ideal fox terrier....got KC recognition and called them Parson Jack Russells.... But..........this resulted in any Tom, Dick or Harry calling their little leggy hond marked terriers 'Parson Jack Russels' and charging more....so to disassociate themselves from these guys, the Parson Jack Russell Terrier guys changed their breed's name to Parson Russell.... Notwithstanding...the fact that all over the countryside - exactly as in Parson Jack R's time all those years ago- lots of working terrier breeders (and pet breeders and hobby breeders and accidental matings) were producing similar looking dogs.... So..... Why have so many rescues suddenly started calling any vaguely leggy, predominantly white-bodied terrier a 'Parsons Terrier' - sometimes with an apostrophe and sometimes without?!!! Why can't we all just chill and accept that unregistered, hound-marked terriers have been and probably always will be lovely, entertaining companions and workers and they don't need dressing up with ever-evolving names or having their ancestory disected? I'm afraid I flipped ever so slightly, when a very sensible friend informed me that she and her husband had rescued a little terrier from a local shelter - a sweet little thing - but with a really reactive and energetic character (as he should have) and she informed me, "He's a Parson's" Working type terriers of any mix are cool Kennel Club recognised breeds of terrier are cool too...heck, even Plummer Terriers, Lucas Terriers and Sporting Lucas Terriers are cool! ALL terriers rock Why then, the sudden urge to re-gurgitate / re-form / re-hash and re-befuddle with the whole Parsonny-thing?!
Snobbery? Like all these designer crosses are now separate "breeds" rather than just first generation cross breeds.
This is purely from things I have read...... The parson in question wanted a dog that could go to ground but have long legs to enable it to run with the horses on a hunt. He crossed one of his dogs with the local milkmans dog.....a dog he deemed suitable to help produce a terrier of the proportions he wanted. He became successful at breeding the 'dog with long legs' and became quite famous in his area. Someone in his employ, also bred the short leg terriers and she started calling them Jack Russells to cash in on the parsons name. Hence over the years, all sizes became known as Jack Russells. Then in the 80's(?) it was decided to differentiate between Jack Russells (a type) and Parson Russells( as Parson Jack Russell had bred) and the Parsons became accepted by the Kennel Club. I have 2 Parsons......they are not KC registered, I have no interest at all in showing them, they are family pets. When people ask what breed they are I say Parson Terriers....Jack Russells with long legs. When I got my 1st 'parson' I was looking to get a JRT, and when I viewed the pups I was a bit miffed that they were larger than I expected. It was only when I was walking with him one day some woman said ....oh he's a parson not a jack. So I went home and read up a bit about it. So yeah! I suppose it is a bit of snobbery on my part, calling him a parson!
It just strikes me as odd that so many rescues seem to think labelling a leggy terrier a 'Parsons' will make it more desirable! It also amuses me that the Parson Russell Terrier Club deliberately dropped the name 'Jack' from the breed title to avoid confusion with unregistered dogs .... and now it's the 'Parson' bit that has found its way into popular usage. That wouldn't be so bad - but "Parsons"?! It just seems t have crept into Rescue-speak in the past few years. I thought rescues would have been against the whole 'give a dog a name to make it more saleable' thing... I wonder what the offical Breed Club are going to change their name to next?!!!
Well the KC parson's, if what many have said, had LOTS of white lakeland blood in originally anyway. So I'm not sure what that would make them anyway :wink:
I've heard that too! In fact, its in the book of the breed, so no secret at all. But what I'm asking is - when did people start calling them 'Parson's' or 'Parsons'? You never used to hear them called that - until a few years ago when the KC version became more popular. Even the KC ones are not called 'Parsons' (plural) If they belonged to Parson Jack Russell, surely they would be 'Russell's Terriers'? Or 'The Parson's Terriers' as opposed to any old parson? I'm just curious as to why so many people have suddenly jumped on the P-word?......and what will be next?! To me - a working terrier is a working terrier and it doesn't matter if there are bits of all sorts in its make-up, as long as it was bred to work and with a clear aim in mind and a bit of thought behind it. That's why there are 'types' rather than 'breeds' in the working world by and large: with some strains breeding true to type and others more mix-and-match depending on availability and the objectives of the breeder. It's ironic that the KC people wanted to re-possess the name 'Parson Jack Russell' from the massess.....only to find the 'massess' then ran off with the 'Parson' bit What next? The Olde Original Deven Clergyman Terrier? It's just symptomatic of the madness that prevails in dog-land today!
Think it was probably a "split" after badger hunting replaced fox hunting as a popular hobby. (Stockier dogs, larger holes) Plus the human desire to "show". Thought the originals were a fair bit smaller than today's parsons - which IMO are more like the original fox terrier. Still - Everyone's got an opinion. Mine is JRTs should still be majority (Majority? over 50%) White - as this was a lot of the point in creating them in the first place, and physically fit for function.
A great terrier keeper, long since dead, once said to me as a small boy, "The workign terrier's be all akin to one and other, bred together and bred apart they may all fall from the same bitch. If it's white, it's a russell. If it's red, tis a lakie or fell. Same for the black and tan chaps. And a black, that be a patterdale. All the same, but all different. Do exactly what it says on the tin."
I see it that to me the parsons type, don't care if they be a registered breed or not, is the longer legged more stockier dogs. The smaller are more the jack type. But as I said,a russell is a russell is a russell is a russell.
It was my understanding that you got long-legged JRTs and short-legged JRT, a variation on a theme, as you get different sizes in some breeds but they are still the same breed: e.g toy, miniature, standard. Then the KC "stole" the long legged ones (like "stealing" "border collie" after it had been in common use for generations) and hey presto, they were then regarded as two different "breeds" :?
More opinions... http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/parson-russells-potted-histories-potted.html
I'd not heard of half these breed names before I started using this forum. It occurs to me that perhaps it won't be long before there is no such thing as a mutt, a mongrel or a plain old cross Heinz 57 - ALL dogs will have pincy poncy invented breed names!
I was gonna say, from what I know they started out the same, bred from a dog who the man got the founding bitch from the milk man. But throughout the years, the Parson Russel Terrier got picked up by the KC, and the Jack Russel (I'm assuming was the original name) was the ones who wasn't bred to type, although you can reconisge the type :??? I don't know, but from what I know it seems that a Parson can be a Jack, but a Jack can't be a Parson. I think that Terriers can be confusing though, you have the Parson and the Jack, that can be very simalar, and most people would count the same. Then you have the Fell and the Patterdale who are the same. Tbh, its probally a mixture of politics, between different working people, and also the show side, and the fact that some pet owners don't care. As long as the dogs a good pet, I mean how common are JRT's, not being KC registered doesn't affect them, and many people who have them, if not most people, have no concerns, or desire to get them registered as a breed.
