Breed Profiles

A friend of mine has a Jack Russell called Pip. Last spring Pip disappeared for eleven minutes into a hedgerow at the bottom of the garden, and when he came out he was covered in soil up to the shoulders, one ear turned inside out, absolutely delighted with himself. There was no fox. There had never been a fox. But there had been a smell of one, sometime, possibly weeks ago, and that was enough. This is the part of the breed that photographs never show you.

The Jack Russell Terrier was built for exactly that hedgerow. In the early nineteenth century a Devon parson named John Russell wanted a terrier that could keep up with mounted foxhounds across country and then, at the end of the chase, go down the hole after the fox and bolt it back out. That job dictated everything. The dog had to be small enough to fit an earth, brave enough to face a cornered animal in the dark with no help coming, loud enough underground that the diggers above could hear where it was, and tough enough to shrug off getting bitten in the face. Nobody was selecting for a lap dog. Nobody was selecting for a dog that stops when you call it.

Two hundred years later, the wiring is intact. That is the single most useful thing to understand before you bring one home. A Jack Russell in a flat in a city is still running that program. It will point it at squirrels, at next door's cat, at the tumble dryer, at a plastic bag blowing past the window, at your ankles at half past nine when it has decided the evening is not over. The prey drive is not a training failure. It is the breed.

What a day with one actually looks like

Two decent walks, and by decent I do not mean a shuffle round the block. This is a dog that can trot beside a horse. Then some kind of thinking work on top of it, because a physically tired Jack Russell with an unoccupied brain is still a problem. Scent games in the garden, a flirt pole, digging boxes filled with sand and buried toys, training sessions that ask for precision rather than repetition. Terriers get bored of drilling the same sit twenty times. Give them a puzzle and they light up.

They are extremely trainable, which surprises people who have only heard the horror stories. The catch is that trainability and biddability are different things. A Border Collie wants to know what you want. A Jack Russell wants to know what is in it for him, and he is perfectly capable of working out that the answer is nothing and going off to do something more interesting. Recall is the classic failure point. Off lead in an open field with a rabbit in it, most Jack Russells will pick the rabbit. You can build a good recall, but you build it with food and games and years of consistency, and you still stay honest with yourself about where you drop the lead.

They are also noisy. Barking was a job requirement underground, and it did not get bred out. Doorbells, deliveries, birds, a leaf. Manageable with early work and a good "enough" cue, but if you live somewhere with thin walls and a low tolerance for sound, think hard.

The naming mess, sorted out

You will see three names and they are genuinely three different things. The Parson Russell Terrier is the taller, squarer, longer-legged version, roughly as tall as it is long, recognised by the Kennel Club and the AKC. The Russell Terrier, sometimes called the Jack Russell in America, is the shorter-legged, longer-bodied one, generally under about twelve inches. And then there is the Jack Russell Terrier as most of Britain and Australia use the term, which covers a working type with a deliberately broad standard, kept that way by working terrier clubs who care more about whether the dog can do the job than whether its outline is fashionable. Rough, broken and smooth coats all occur. The predominantly white body was intentional too, so a terrier emerging from a hole was not mistaken for the fox.

The health list, honestly

Here is the good news, and it is genuinely good. Jack Russells are one of the longest-lived breeds going. Reaching fifteen or sixteen is common, and plenty push past that. Large studies of UK life expectancy repeatedly put them at or near the top. A small, functional, working-bred dog without exaggerated features tends to age well, and this breed is the case study.

That said, there are real problems to know about. Primary lens luxation is the serious one. The lens of the eye slips out of position, it is painful, and it can cost the eye if it is not caught fast. There is a DNA test, the mutation is well characterised in the breed, and any breeder worth talking to will have tested the parents and will show you the results without being asked. Congenital deafness turns up too, linked to the heavy white pigment, and BAER testing on puppies is the way to find it. Patellar luxation, where the kneecap slips, is fairly common in the smaller-legged types. Legg-Calve-Perthes disease affects the hip in some young small dogs. Ataxia and myelopathy also have DNA tests available in the breed lines that carry them.

None of that should scare you off. It should tell you what to ask. Eye test results, BAER results, knees checked, and a breeder who talks about temperament and work rather than colour and size.

Who should not get one? Anyone who wants a quiet dog. Anyone with free-roaming small pets, because a hamster and a terrier are not a long-term arrangement. Anyone buying on looks, and there are a lot of those, because the breed is enormously photogenic.

Who should? Someone who actually wants a dog around, in the loud, involved, opinionated sense. Someone who runs or walks a lot anyway. Someone who finds a bit of cheek funny rather than insulting. Live with a good one for fifteen years and you get a dog with more personality per kilo than almost anything else on four legs, and that is worth the mud.