English White Terrier

The White English Terrier is an extinct breed of dog.

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English White Terrier with Black and Tan Terrier

The English White Terrier is the failed show ring name of a pricked-ear verion of the white fox-working terriers that have existed in the U.K. since the late 18th Century.

The name "English White" was invented and embraced in the early 1870s by a handful of breeders anxious to create a new breed from a prick-eared version of the small white working terriers that were later "improved" into the Fox Terrier, the Jack Russell Terrier and the Sealyham Terrier.

In the end, however, the Kennel Club hierarchy decided the "English White Terrier" was a distinction without a difference, and the dog's name was eliminated as a type -- gone almost as fast as it was created.

A History of Confusion

Many of the terrier breeds that people now lament as "extinct" never actually existed except in the minds of Victorian picture book makers.

Small white working terriers have exited in the U.K. since at least the late 18th Century. These dogs have always been quite variable in terms of size and shape, with dogs ranging in size from 10 to 15 inches, and with both drop ears and prick ears, smooth, broken, and rough coats.

With the rise of dog shows in the 1860s, breed fancy enthusiasts raced to name and "improve" every type of dog they could find, and terriers were at the very top of their list. From the long-extent white-bodied working terriers came the Fox Terrier, the Jack Russell Terrier, the Parson Russell Terrier, and the Sealyham Terrier.

In the rush to create and claim new breeds, competing groups of dog breeders sometimes came up with different names for the same dog, and it was very common for entirely fictional breed histories to cobbled up as part of a campaign to declare a new breed and create a bit of personal distinction for a dog's originator (to say nothing of sales).

For example, in 1851, the Yorkshire Terrier was also known as "the broken-haired scotch terrier." Only in 1870 was a Yorkshire Terrier firmly designated as a breed and breed name. Before then litter mates were often shown in different breed categories -- a situation that occurred with the first prize-winning Jack Russell Terrier, which had previously won shows as a "white Lakeland Terrier."

In the early 1870s, a small group of dog show enthusiasts tried to claim that prick-eared versions of white working terriers were an entirely different breed from those same dogs with dropped ears. The problems with this claim were legion, however. For one thing, prick and drop-eared dogs were often found in the same litter, while entirely white dogs had a propensity for deafness and were therefore nearly useless in the field.

At one level the history of the English White Terrier is similar to many other unsucessful breeds that were "created" whole cloth in the 1870s but failed to find their way onto Kennel Clubs. Most of these dogs disappeared from memory witin a single canine-generation of when they were created.

Where the "English White Terrier" is distinctive, however, is that unlike other failed breeds it managed to find its way into a picture book before it was ushered off the stage. "The Illustrated Book of the Dog," by Very Shaw, was printed in 1881, just 8 years after the Kennel Clun was created. right Shaw's book contains about 100 chromo-lithograph plates and engravings of dog breeds that were, at the time of publication, being put forth as distinct entities. Shaw rather optimistically included the "English White Terrier" as well as the "Black and Tan Terrier," betting that the political machinations of a small but aggressive group of English Kennel Club dog breeders would prevail. (Burns, 2005)

He was wrong, which is how two "ancient" breeds of terrers that existed (in name only) for less than 20 years, disappeared leaving not so much as a ripple in their wake. In both cases, what went extinct was not a dog, but a failed name. The white fox-working terrier still exist in the form of the Jack Russell Terrier, while the Kennel show ring has the Smooth Fox Terrier, the Parson Russell Terrier, and the Sealyham Terrier

Sources

• Burns, Patrick. American Working Terriers, 2005. ISBN 1-4116-6082-X 1]
• Shaw, Vero. (1879). The Classic Encyclopedia of the Dog, Chapter XIV. Cassell.
• Leighton, R. Dogs and All About Them, Chapter XXIX.

To read more

• working terrier
• Black and Tan Terrier
• Jack Russell Terrier