Tenterfield Terrier

The Tenterfield Terrier is a terrier developed in Australia. It comes from the small dogs long known there as Miniature Fox Terriers, or Mini Foxies, which were kept to kill vermin and as family companions.

History

The origin of the breed is not known for certain. It is said to go back to dogs that came with Australia’s first European settlers, who sailed from Portsmouth in the south of England. These dogs killed pests and vermin, and the smallest were chosen for the job on board ship. It is also said that the smallest puppies in Fox Terrier litters were picked out, for example because they were handier when hunting, and sometimes crossed with other small breeds to bring the size down further.

By the late 19th century the Miniature Fox Terrier type was well established in rural Australia as a vermin killer and companion. By the 1920s it was a fixture in city households too.

The name is sometimes wrongly taken to mean that the breed comes from the town of Tenterfield. It may instead have come from a well-known breeder. Small terriers of this kind were bred widely in and around northern New South Wales, and Tenterfield was one of many places where they were kept. People in the town say that George Woolnough, the saddler remembered in his grandson Peter Allen’s song “Tenterfield Saddler”, owned and loved several of them, though no photographs of his dogs have been found.

The name Tenterfield Terrier was suggested in the 1990s by the television gardening presenter Don Burke. It was adopted when one of the Miniature Fox Terrier clubs of the time was renamed.

Care and health

Congenital hypothyroidism occurs in the breed. A study traced it to a single mutation, which was present in every affected dog and carried by 31% of clinically healthy Tenterfield Terriers. A test for the mutation has been developed and released.

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