The little white dog in the photo from yesterday was a toy bull terrier. It was very similar to the English white terrier, which is one of its ancestors.
I actually have hard time telling these extinct dogs apart. The only reason why this dog isn’t an English white terrier is that the English white terrier apparently was either very rare at this time or already extinct (the last record of the breed was in 1894). This particular dog comes from a book by W.E. Mason called Dogs of All Nations. Mason has no photographs of either toy or standard English whites, and only claims that the both breeds are very similar to the Manchester (English black and tan) terrier, which is an accurate description. Both were the result of breeding whippets or Italian greyhounds to terriers.
Here’s an English white terrier from around 1890:
They were popular house pets and occasionally used for ratting. However, the English white dogs became almost universally deaf. The white color that they have is associated with deafness, and in that breed’s standard, no colored markings were allowed. Eventually, the public stopped buying them and breeding them. The Manchesters still exist in much more limited form today, although I’ve seen several rat terriers that very obviously show their Manchester terrier ancestry. I knew of one that looked exactly like a toy Manchester, and she was a working squirrel dog.
Still, I must admit that I have a hard time telling photos of toy bull terriers and English white terriers apart. They are close relatives. The big bull terrier was derived from crossing a bull terrier with a bulldog, and this smaller dog looks like a cross between the English toy white terrier, which weighed less than 6 pounds, with the smaller versions of the bull terrier breed.
The toy bull terrier also went extinct. I should note here that the miniature bull terrier is not the same breed as this dog. The miniature bull terrier is simply a smaller version of the modern bull terrier. It looks like a 20-35 bull terrier.
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Now I’m going to show you something interesting.
What would you call these dogs?
How many of you said “Chihuahua”?
Well, these dogs were not Chihuahuas.
They were also toy bull terriers.
This photo comes from Every Woman’s Encyclopaedia 1910-1912.
Now, the fact that these dogs look a lot like Chihuahuas probably isn’t a coincidence.
I have a hard time believing that the Meso-American dogs were originally as small as the modern dog we call a Chihuahua.
The apple heads and moleras that so define the Chihuahua breed most likely come from cross-breeding with toy bull terrier and toy English white terriers. Considering how common these terriers were in the late nineteenth century in the fancy, it would make sense that Chihuahua breeders would have crossed them with their dogs to “improve them.” The toy English white terrier was as small as the modern Chihuahua, weighing less than 6 pounds, and it would have been a useful outcross to reduce size.
Training Small dogs can be a challenge. Dogs that weigh less than 10lbs move quickly. They are also so close to the ground already that using a Food-Lure (a treat held in your hand, close to their nose) can be challenging. For medium and large dogs Food-Lures are a convenient ways to move dogs into positions like sit or down. However, with small dogs Food-Lures can sometimes cause more jumping-bean action than is conducive to training.
For really small, fast-flying dogs I prefer to sit back and relax when training. For this type of training a CLICKER is really, really handy. A clicker is a small device that makes a click-sound when the metal flap inside the small box is pressed down and released.
Clickers are used to train dogs, horses, cats, pigeonsrats and even marine mammals. Using a clicker is simple. In the beginning the animal in training needs only to learn that each click-sound will be quickly followed by a small reward (technically it must be a reinforcer) that the animal will enjoy and working for. I like using small, tasty bits of food like cheeses or meats.
The rules are simple.
1. Click what you like.
2. Click at the EXACT moment the behavior is accomplished.
3. Don't command the animal to DO anything, JUST WAIT for something -be patient!!!
4. Reward the animal after every click.
5. Train is short intervals 5-10minutes
Sometimes it is helpful to think of the clicker as a camera. At the end of the training if each CLICK was a PHOTO, and if you placed all those photos on your kitchen table you would have only photos of the behavior (sit, down, bow) that you were hoping to train.
Here are two Kinder-CLICKER lesson for fast-flying, jumpy little-dogs.
1. Click (and reward) the dog anytime they are NOT moving. Click the dog for being still in any position. Offer extra treats for clicks that marked exceptionally cute still positions (like sit or down). After 2 or 3 sessions, raise the bar and click only certain positions.
2. Click (and reward) All Cute Behaviors. This is my favorite. I will click anything cute!!! Head-tilts, play-bows, prairie-dog position, sit, down, waving. Then I pick one behavior that gets clicked and a special bonus treat (gorgonzola). I like to see how long it takes for the dog to offer only that behavior.
