A Devon parson and a terrier called Trump
The breed starts with one man and one dog. John Russell — Jack to everyone — was born in Devon in 1795 and spent almost sixty years as a country parson in the west of England, with a reputation for hunting that comfortably outgrew his reputation for preaching. In 1819, while he was still a student at Oxford, he passed a milkman walking a small white-and-tan terrier. He bought her on the spot, called her Trump, and built everything that followed on her.
What Russell wanted was specific. A terrier that could run with the foxhounds all day, keep up with a horse, and then go to ground and work in a space barely wider than its own chest. It had to be compact enough to follow the quarry underground and tall enough on the leg to travel. And it had to be predominantly white, so that in poor light nobody could mistake the dog for anything else.
Russell was a founding member of the Kennel Club in 1873, though he never showed his own terriers, and the strain he left behind spread through hunting country by word of mouth rather than through a stud book. That is why the breed arrived in the twentieth century as a working type with plenty of local variation rather than a single fixed shape.
What the name covers today
The name is used loosely, and it helps to know what sits underneath it. In the United States the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America was founded in 1976 and kept the dogs registered as working terriers. The American Kennel Club took a different route, recognizing the taller, squarer type in 2000 under the name Parson Russell Terrier, and then the shorter, longer-bodied type in 2012 as the Russell Terrier.
All of it comes from the same Devon stock. In practice most people use Jack Russell as an umbrella for the lot, and the dogs run from about ten to fifteen inches at the shoulder and thirteen to seventeen pounds — a small dog with a great deal of engine in it.
The build is more interesting than the size. A Jack Russell is meant to be flexible through the chest, with a rib cage a pair of hands can span, because a dog that cannot compress cannot get where it was bred to go. Everything else follows from that: a strong straight front, real muscle over the loin, a tail set high, small V-shaped ears folded forward, and dark almond eyes that miss nothing in a room.
Smooth, broken and rough
The coat comes in three versions, and all three sit over the same weatherproof double coat. The smooth is short and dense and lies flat. The rough is longer, harsher and stands away from the body, with a beard and eyebrows. The broken sits between them: mostly short, with longer hair on the face and along the back, which is where most of the scruffy-faced Jack Russells you see come from.
Colour is white with markings in black, tan or both, usually on the head and around the tail. A tricolour puppy often carries a saddle that changes shape as it grows, so the pattern you bring home is a starting position rather than a finished one.
Grooming is a small weekly job whichever coat you get. A rubber curry or a hound glove once a week lifts the loose hair out of a smooth coat and brings up a shine at the same time. A rough or broken coat wants a comb through and, if you like the harsh texture, a hand-strip a couple of times a year, which a groomer will do for you in an afternoon. Nails a little and often, ears wiped while you brush, teeth done from the first week. Ten minutes across a week covers all of it.
The mind of a working terrier
Living with a Jack Russell is easy to describe: you have a small dog who turns up every morning ready for work. This is a bold, bright, entirely self-possessed animal that wakes up interested and stays that way. It notices what you are carrying. It knows which cupboard the leash lives in. It has views about the vacuum cleaner.
With its own people the breed is warm and physically affectionate — a Jack Russell that has run its day out will burrow under a blanket and sleep as though somebody switched it off. They are funny dogs, too, and a good deal of the comedy is deliberate. The breed has a well-developed sense of what gets a reaction, and will happily do it again.
They suit households that are already moving. Families who walk, run, garden, hike or spend weekends outdoors get the best of the breed, and older children who want a dog that plays properly find a very willing partner. Given something to do and company to do it with, a Jack Russell is one of the most rewarding small dogs there is.
Training a terrier that likes a job
The good news is that Jack Russells learn quickly and love being paid. The useful news is that they learn just as quickly from the things you did not mean to teach, so it pays to decide early what the rules are and then keep them the same.
Sessions should be short and frequent — two minutes before dinner, one while the kettle boils, another in the evening. Mark the behaviour the instant it happens and pay well for it. Food is the main currency, but a tug toy or a thrown ball is often worth more to this breed than cheese, and using the game itself as the reward is the trick that unlocks a terrier.
Two things deserve real time in the first year. The first is a recall paid every single time, practised in the yard, then on a long line, then in the park, until coming back is simply what happens when the name is said. The second is a settle on a mat, which teaches a busy dog that off is a position it knows how to hold. Socialization is the rest of it: floors, stairs, umbrellas, hats, bicycles, calm dogs, the hardware store. A Jack Russell that has met a hundred ordinary things by six months treats the hundred and first as ordinary too.
What a day together looks like
Mornings are for the real walk, and in a Florida or Tennessee summer the early hours are the pleasant ones for both of you. Forty minutes with some running in a secure space, or a jog if that is your thing, sets the tone for everything after it.
The middle of the day wants something for the head. Five minutes of trick training, a food puzzle, a treat hidden under one of three cups, or a handful of kibble scattered in the grass does more for a terrier than another mile of pavement. Digging is part of the package and it is easy to give somewhere to go: a sandbox in a corner of the yard with a toy buried in it becomes the most popular square metre you own.
There is plenty to enter if you enjoy that side of things. Earthdog trials come straight out of the breed’s history, and barn hunt, agility, flyball, rally and trick titles all suit the mind and the build. Jack Russells turn up in film and television work for the same reason — Eddie in Frasier and the dog who played Wishbone were both this breed, and both were doing what the breed enjoys most, which is being given a job and an audience.
Evenings are for company. A Jack Russell that has run, thought and been included through the day spends them as a small warm dog asleep on the sofa with its feet in the air, and there is no better advertisement for the breed than that.
Come and meet the Jack Russell puppies
A photograph shows a neat white dog with patches. Standing next to one, what you notice is the attention: how fast a Jack Russell puppy works out who you are, how directly it comes over, and how completely it commits to whatever happens next.
Our Jack Russell Terrier puppies come from our network of licensed breeders, and our team can tell you what a particular puppy has been like with people and with its littermates. We have a store in Orlando and one in Nashville, and you are welcome to sit on the floor 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.