The little guy was a Jack Russel/mini fox terrier mix, he passed on five years back.
The one in the middle was a rat terrier, she got out of the yard one night and disappeared. Unusual as she wasn't a roamer.
The heeler mutt is one year old in that photo.
IME, rat terriers are much less wired than Russels, and also a lot more visual, befitting a classic squirrel dog, as opposed to a typical Russel which is more often nose to the ground.
Birdwatcher
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
I am a big fan of the JRT. We do not have one now, because Momma has a brand new little phoo phoo yorkie/maltese cross.
This was our Rascal. We had to recently put him down at a young 7 1/2 due to a debilitating and progressive back injury He was sold as a pureblood Jack, but I have doubts in that regard. He grew to a fit 30 lbs and lived to hunt anything with fur or feathers.
Here, he is taunting a big old bull snake, but that is as close as he ever got to it.
I nailed this one in 2012. Threw a 200 gr TTSX via 358 Win.
I'm calling BS on that one.
Not enough gun.
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
I've lived with JRTs for a long time. They are not hyper, but they DO think they weigh 500 lbs and have to be treated as such. Nothing like Rat Terriers.
The only thing worse than a liberal is a liberal that thinks they're a conservative.
our beloved Emmy Lou, aka *EL* for short passed last april a year ago. she was descended from a pack of mtn fiests/terriers that made their living controlling varmints & vermin at a commercial poultry farm in ne Georgia.
she was long legged, short-haired, weighed 23 lbs, when the doc said she should weigh 18 lbs. she was 18 inches high at the shoulders. and feared nothing nor anyone. i believe there was some whippet hound mixed into her ancestry back there somewheres. we had her fixed early on so she never had any pups. she was mostly white, with brown spots. we still miss her and do wish we had gotten some pups from her.
Here is Sam my 8 year old rat, great dog with amazing prey drive
seems like it is written somewheres that a rat terrier began as a cross between a fox terrier & a manchester terrier. i don't know that i've ever seen a manchester terrier, but i don't doubt that they really do exist.
a JRT is a "type" of fox terrier if i'm understanding things correctly. a mtn feist might be a bit different but does possess quite a bit of fox terrier heritage, which might have come from the JRT bloodlines. it's an interesting subject, and the dogs that carry that bloodline are to be praised.
Rat terriers aren't an engineered breed, only in the last few years AKC accepted them as a true breed. They more or less just happened and got popular likely for their prodigious anti-vermin capabilities. And they're just nice dogs to have around. One of the breed clubs had a "family tree" posted, maybe they still do, that had about every popular breed you could think of in there somewhere.
The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh