Talk:Jack Russell Terrier

Reasons

The question arose as to whether Parson Jack Russell terriers were the same dog as Jack Russell terriers. They point is that some dog clubs do not distinguish them, but some do. If they do, Parsons are over 12" and JRs are under 12" in height at shoulders ("withers"). The relevance being that the larger dogs were used for fox hunting, whereas the smaller dogs were used for hunting rabbits and rodents. My opinion was:

What Jack Russell bred was a Jack Russell terrier. In two hundred years, all sorts of variations have been selected for. Different breed organisations have set up slightly different standards for their show dogs, and what you have found is one of those variations. Since Jack Russells as a whole are only one set of terriers, it would be difficult to split down any further without doing the whole lot. See en Terrier Group to get some idea of the complexity: [1]. And note the differences between them.

If anyone wants to put up a page on the Rev Jack Russell, that's good. But don't say "the Parson Jack Russell terrier is the one he created" because that's simply not true. We don't have the original dog (except in the sense that it was one of the larger dogs), and only for modern breeds is there any genetics. What we do have is a whole set of Jack Russell variants, all of which are descended from some of the dogs he bred. Plus maybe some crosses to other dog breeds.

One can say "such-and-such kennel club claims that..." (with source), but in the reader's mind will be the question of "well, what do the other dog clubs think?". For these reason, I think we are better off with a general page on Jack Russells.

Just adding this from En wiki's Terrier Group page: "It is the recognised conformation show variety of the Jack Russell Terrier and was first recognised in 1990 in the United Kingdom as the Parson Jack Russell Terrier. In America, it was first recognised as the Jack Russell Terrier in 1997". I think this means the two terms are equivalent.

For this reason "Parson Jack Russell Terrier" now redirects to "Jack Russel Terrier".

I daresay the issue might come up again, and possibly with other breeds. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:41, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Whatever is decided, the "More details" section should be renamed or something, because it reads as though it were just stuck in to have somewhere to put the information. It seems to be just about the Parson Jack Russell terrier. Maybe call the section "Parson Jack Russell terrier", or add the contents of the section to the "Variants" section? --Auntof6 (talk) 08:50, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Removed ref

I removed a ref from Ask.com which turned out to be a direct copy from English wiki. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:38, 30 December 2014 (UTC)