Читать книгу Jack Russell Terrier: An Owner’s Guide - Robert Killick - Страница 13

Very little was written on Terriers in ancient times, although Oppian wrote in the third century of small dogs used by the rough natives of Britain to scent and hunt game. Later, in 1486, Dame Juliana Berners mentioned ‘terours’ among other breeds of ‘dogges’ in her Boke of St Albans. Dr Johannes Caius presented terriers as we would recognize them today in his book on dogs, De Canibus Britannicis (1570). In 1686, Richard Blome described the working Terrier, which was indicative of a change in the attitude of huntsmen and the development of Terriers.

It is a Jack Russell’s instinct to hunt and to dig. Like most other Terrier breeds, these dogs were developed to keep down vermin.

In pre-medieval and medieval times, the aristocracy hunted deer for pleasure and the larder, so the development of hounds was their priority. Terriers were for the peasantry and interested the nobility only when they were engaged in dog fights, bull baiting and badger hunting. Medieval laws even forbade peasants from owning hunting dogs and disabled any suspect dogs to prevent them being used for deer hunting. Gundogs became a necessity when guns were introduced – Setters were used to indicate where the birds were, and Retrievers to bring back the dead.