Other Names: American Rat Terrier, Ratting Terrier, Decker Giant.
The Rat Terrier is an American dog breed with a background as a farm dog and hunting companion. They share much ancestry with the small hunting dogs known as feists. Common throughout family farms in the 1920s and 1930s, they are now recognized by the United and American Kennel Clubs and are considered a rare breed. Today’s Rat Terrier is an intelligent and active small dog that is kept both for pest control and as a family pet.
History
The earliest known record of a rat-catching dog is that of “Hatch”, whose remains were recovered from the Mary Rose, the flagship of Henry VIII, sunk in 1545 and re-raised in 1982. Hatch is thought to have been a mongrel and was brought on board to control the rat population.
The breed name comes from the occupation of its earliest ancestors brought to the US by working-class British migrants as the dogs were used in rat-baiting. However, they were, for the most part, bred for speed. Their speed is used for controlling vermin and hunting small game such as squirrels and hares. After the 1890s, as the breed type became popular in America, Beagles, Italian Greyhounds and Manchester Terriers were bred in. Many of the foundation Rat Terriers were indistinguishable from small mixed-breed hunting dogs known as “feists”. The smaller varieties diverged from the Rat Terrier line very early on, with UKC registration for the Toy Fox Terrier beginning in 1936.
Rat Terriers were cherished as loyal hunting companions and efficient killers of vermin on 20th-century American farms: as a result, they were one of the most popular dog types from the 1920s to the 1940s. However, the widespread use of chemical pesticides and the growth of commercial farming led to a sharp decline in the breed from the 1950s onwards. Breed loyalists maintained the bloodline, leading to the modern Rat Terrier.
The genetic diversity of the Rat Terrier has contributed to the overall health, keen intelligence, and soundness of the breed. Most modern breeds were developed from a few founding dogs and then propagated from a closed gene pool. In contrast, the Rat Terrier has benefited from a long history of refinement with regular outcrosses to bring in useful qualities and genetic variability.
In the current times, the Rat Terrier is becoming popular not only as a family pet but as a working dog in several fields.
Their affectionate and calm temperament along with small size has made them popular as service dogs in hospice, treatment for depression, in Assisted Living, and other human-care jobs.
Police departments have started using them as contraband search dogs as their intelligence level shortens training to as little as three weeks which is much shorter than for traditional police service breeds. Also, their small size allows search of cars, homes, and prison cells without causing the major damage a large German Shepherd or other traditional police service breed would do during a car search and lessening the chances of major financial settlements if there is nothing found during a search.