Whence
Yorkshire Terrier (dog breed)
Animal

Where does Yorkshire Terrier (dog breed) come from?

The Yorkshire Terrier comes from the mill towns of Yorkshire in northern England. In the 1800s mill workers there bred a small, silky ratter from terriers that Scottish weavers had brought south, and by the 1870s it carried the county's name.

Ratters of the mills

In the middle of the 1800s, weavers from Scotland moved south to work in the textile mills of Yorkshire and brought their terriers with them. There the Scottish dogs, among them the Clydesdale or Paisley Terrier, were crossed with local terriers. Mill workers did most of the breeding, and their small dogs hunted rats in the mills. The earliest recorded ancestors are a black-and-tan terrier called Old Crab, born around 1850, and a Paisley Terrier called Old Kitty.

Huddersfield Ben sets the type

At first, almost any long-coated terrier with a blue body and a fawn or silver head passed as a Yorkshire Terrier. Then came Huddersfield Ben, born around 1865 and owned by Mary Ann Foster of Bradford. He won 74 prizes at dog shows and also shone in ratting contests. Though he weighed 9 to 12 pounds, he regularly sired puppies under 7 pounds. He was run over by a carriage at six, yet he set the look of the breed and is still called its 'father'.

Why people think of Scotland

The Scottish roots are real. The breed descends from larger Scottish terriers such as the Skye Terrier and the extinct Clydesdale, whose silky blue-and-tan coat the Yorkie still shows. The first dogs were shown as 'Broken Haired Scotch Terriers'. But the breed was made in Yorkshire, and by the 1870s the dogs were popular enough there and beyond to earn the county's name; one old account says it was given 'on account of their being improved so much in Yorkshire'.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org › Yorkshire Terrier ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Huddersfield Ben ↗ · akc.org ↗ · dogsnz.org.nz ↗

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