Small wonders

At the Game Fair in 2019, I was wandering down Gunmakers’ Row when I found myself on a collision course with an elderly lady cradling a small, bright-eyed, smooth-haired, black-and-tan dog with a long, tapering muzzle and pricked lugs, not unlike a miniature Doberman Pinscher. In fact, as the good lady was quick to tell me, this was an English Toy terrier, known in America as the Toy Manchester, since it is regarded as a variety of the same breed as the standard size. Manchesters evolved in the early Industrial Revolution, when a whippet, or ‘snap dog’, was crossed with an old English Black & Tan terrier to create a dog that excelled both at ratting and coursing rabbits. Her cherished companion would be a direct descendant of a dog called Tiny the Wonder, who, in 1848 and 1849, at the height of rat-baiting popularity, held the record for killing 200 rats in under an hour. Tiny weighed only 5½lb and can be seen in action in the painting Rat-Catching at the ‘Blue Anchor’ Tavern, Bunhill Row, Finsbury, which hangs in the Museum of London. I felt this was probably not the moment to tell the owner she was cuddling a rat killer of such illustrious lineage, but it did make me wonder how many people have any idea what all the different breeds of terrier were actually bred for.

Until the late 1800s, terriers were loosely classified as four basic types: long-legged, wire-coated