Page 87 - K9News_Issue16_May2021

their function
would be (they
may have
flushed out
rabbits etc.).
As yet we have
not reached
the point where
there is any
resemblance
to an ETT.
Ratters,
certainly, were
kept in stables
to keep vermin
under control,
some will have
been small and
even black and
tan in colour,
although not exclusively. level the Industrial Revolution saw a dynamic
shift by the population from a pastoral lifestyle to
Regency dandies DID carry small Terriers city dwellers.
in the ubiquitous leather satchel, along with
the more generally associated swaggering Shuffling on rather hurriedly we come to
stick (a short cane) carried to strike finger- the 19th century. By now cities are vastly
smiths, undesirables & ne’er do wells). These overcrowded, short on accommodation,
diminutive dogs were regarded as a delightful prone to outbursts of cholera, due to impure
fashion accessory. Colour again would be at the water supplies contaminated by sewage etc.
whim of each particular dandy. Country folk had not anticipated the downside
ramifications of becoming city folks, where they
Before this era, the only kept records on the had arrived under a delusion of making one’s
breeding of dogs was by hunting kennels – fortune on streets paved with gold.
Greyhounds, Deerhounds, Wolfhounds etc.
It was the Victorians who would lead us into It would have been the more successful
a more structured form of dog breeding and integrators who, with a yearning for their rural
pedigree record keeping and into the evolution past and with the financial wherewithal and
of the ETT (please note, I’m using this monicker facilities, could recreate a small corner of the
throughout for ease of identification). English countryside in their back yard. Chicken
keeping, gardening (of sorts) and the breeding
The 18th century saw a dramatic shift in the of domestic livestock could be indulged (rabbits,
populated landscape of Britain, England dogs, etc.).
particularly. In 1714 we imported a non
English speaking German king from Hanover, Through the Georgian/Victorian period, England
which would result in a change to universal was a bloodthirsty nation with a penchant for
suffrage, the Rights of Man, and in the power of ‘blood’ sports; bull baiting , bear baiting, dog
Parliament (George I, spoke virtually no English, fighting, cock fighting, and the bizarre sport of
nor George II who preferred being in Hanover, duck baiting. Even public hangings drew large
to which he travelled frequently). On a domestic crowds of men, women and children who would

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K9 NEWS DIGITAL / MAY 2021