Two American farm terriers, crossed
The Foxy Rat Terrier puts a Toy Fox Terrier and a Rat Terrier together, and the two parents come out of the same story: the American farm, where a small dog earned its keep keeping the barn and the grain store tidy.
The Rat Terrier is the older of the pair. It was built in the United States in the nineteenth century from Smooth Fox Terriers and Manchester Terriers brought over by English immigrants, and then quietly improved by farmers who added whatever they were short of. Beagle went in for a better nose and an easy pack temper. Whippet and Italian Greyhound went in for speed. What came out was one of the most useful farm dogs America ever produced, and it stayed a working dog rather than a show dog for most of its history. The American Kennel Club recognized the Rat Terrier in 2013.
The Toy Fox Terrier is the newer branch and a deliberately smaller one. Breeders in the United States crossed small Smooth Fox Terriers with toy breeds — Chihuahua, Manchester Terrier and Miniature Pinscher among them — to get a terrier that kept every bit of the character in a frame that fitted a lap. The United Kennel Club recognized it in 1936 and the American Kennel Club in 2003, and it is still sometimes called the AmerToy.
Cross two breeds this closely related and the result is more predictable than most crosses. Expect a small, smooth-coated, finely built dog with real muscle under it and reflexes noticeably faster than the average dog its size.
The Roosevelt name
The best-known piece of Rat Terrier lore attaches to Theodore Roosevelt, who kept terriers of this type and is widely credited with the name. The story runs that his dog cleared the rats out of the White House and the breed took its name from the job.
Whatever the exact truth of it, the association stuck, and it stuck twice over. The short-legged strain carries his name outright: the Teddy Roosevelt Terrier, recognized as a breed in its own right by the United Kennel Club, is the same farm dog built lower to the ground. It is a rare thing for a president to end up on a pedigree, and Rat Terrier people have never been shy about mentioning it.
Small, smooth, and marked like nothing else
A Rat Terrier stands somewhere between about thirteen and eighteen inches at the shoulder, with a miniature variety below that, and weighs from ten to twenty-five pounds. A Toy Fox Terrier is smaller again: eight and a half to eleven and a half inches, and around three and a half to seven pounds. A Foxy Rat Terrier lands between the two, which in practice means a compact dog you can pick up in one arm with a great deal more athlete in it than the weight suggests.
The build is the giveaway. A deep chest for the size, a tucked waist, clean straight legs, and a coat lying so tight to the body that you can watch the muscle move underneath. The ears stand erect or tip over at the top, occasionally one of each for a few weeks while a puppy makes up its mind. The tail may be long or naturally short.
Colour is where these two parents are generous. Both are pied breeds — a base of white broken by patches — and the patches come in black, tan, chocolate, blue, lemon and apricot. Tricolour is the classic: white, black and tan, usually with tan points over the eyes and on the cheeks. No two are marked the same, and the puppy in front of you rarely looks like the photograph that brought you in.
The coat itself is the easiest part of ownership. A rubber curry mitt once a week lifts the loose hair and brings up a shine at the same time, and a bath when the dog has found something worth a bath. Nails want trimming a little and often on a light-boned dog, ears get a wipe while you are already there, and teeth deserve a proper daily brush from the first week, which small dogs take to happily if you start before they have formed any opinions about it.
Busy, bright and completely involved
A Foxy Rat Terrier is affectionate with its own people in a very direct way. It will sit on you, follow you from room to room, get under the blanket, and take a close professional interest in the contents of the kitchen. This is not a dog that observes the household from a distance.
It is alert, too. Both parents were kept partly to announce arrivals, so you will know when someone comes to the door, when the mail arrives and when a squirrel oversteps. Most owners settle into the same routine: go and look together, thank the dog, and get on with the day. Handled that way from the first week, the whole business stays brief.
The other inheritance is the interest in small fast-moving things. Lizards, squirrels and blowing leaves all get the full treatment, and it is one of the funnier things about living with a terrier once you give it somewhere to go. A flirt pole in the yard, a tennis ball down a hallway, a tug toy with rules, a treat hidden under one of three cups — twenty minutes of that and the dog is thoroughly pleased with itself.
They are clever with it. Both parent breeds have a long record in obedience and agility rings, and a Foxy Rat Terrier handed a job puts everything it has into it.
Training a fast learner with a short attention span
Keep it short and keep it fun. Two or three minutes is a full session for a dog like this, and finishing on a win while it still wants more is worth a quarter of an hour of repetition. Ask for one thing at a time, mark it the instant it happens, and pay properly.
Food works. So does a toy, and with a terrier the chance to chase a tug is often the better currency. A dog that gets to grab and pull at the end of a recall will come back at speed for the rest of its life, which is the whole point.
Recall deserves that investment, because a small dog with this much engine covers ground faster than you expect. Teach it on a long line in open spaces, pay it every single time, and keep a securely fenced yard at home. That is not a restriction; it is what lets the dog run flat out with nobody having to think about it.
Socialization is the rest of it. Take the puppy out through the first year to meet ordinary things — different floors, umbrellas, wheeled bins, hats, bicycles, calm adult dogs behaving normally. A terrier that has met a hundred ordinary things by six months treats the hundred and first as ordinary too, and grows into the confident, easygoing little dog the breed is capable of being.
Exercise is modest in distance and generous in interest. A proper walk in the morning, another in the evening, and active play in between suits most of them. In a Florida or Tennessee summer the early and late hours are the good ones, and a shaded route is worth going out of your way for.
Come and meet a Foxy Rat Terrier
This is a breed whose character shows itself immediately. Ten minutes on the floor with one and you will know exactly what you are dealing with, which is more than a photograph of a small white and tan dog can tell you.
Our Foxy Rat Terrier puppies come from our network of licensed breeders, and our team can tell you how a particular puppy has been getting on with people. We have a store in Orlando and one in Nashville, and you are welcome to sit down with a puppy for as long as you like before deciding anything. Find directions and hours, and ask about financing while you are here. Every puppy here goes home with its vet records, its vaccination history and a health warranty, and our team will walk you through what those cover.