Proto-terriers

PRESENTED BY THE DOMESDAY BOOK OF DOGS "The cubist effect of square bodies and rectangular heads is due to a temporary modern phase and does not represent a true family characteristic.  Generally the group shows marked alertness, activity and propensity to turbulence."   Hubbard, 1948.   With few exceptions (mainly Scottish) all the British terrier breeds as we know them originated in the 19th and 20th centuries.  There can be little doubt that terriers are bred down hounds, with a huge dollop of blood from other breeds, which themselves would have been bred from an admixture of hunting dogs, water dogs, pastoral dogs and other working dogs.  This is an attempt to analyse the breed-types that have existed over the last eight hundred years or so, where known, that may have been added to the melting pot that produced our modern day terrier breeds.   Latham, 1975, has discovered a reference to a terrier from 1211 in the Rolls of King John.  As usual there is no description: