A feist is a small

hunting dog A hunting dog is a canine that hunts with or for hunters. There are several different types of hunting dog developed for various tasks and purposes. The major categories of hunting dog include hounds, terriers, dachshunds, cur type dogs, and g ...

, descended from the terriers brought over to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

by British miners and other immigrants. These

terrier Terrier (from Latin ''terra'', 'earth') is a type of dog originally bred to hunt vermin. A terrier is a dog of any one of many breeds or landraces of the terrier type, which are typically small, wiry, game, and fearless. Terrier breeds vary ...

s probably included crosses between the

Smooth Fox Terrier The Smooth Fox Terrier is a breed of dog, one of many terrier breeds. It was the first breed in the fox terrier family to be given official recognition by The Kennel Club (circa 1875; breed standard 1876). It is well known, and although not a ...

, the

Manchester Terrier The Manchester Terrier is a breed of dog of the smooth-haired terrier type. It was first bred in the 19th century to control vermin, notably rats, at which it excelled. So efficient at the task was it that it often appeared in rat-baiting pits ...

, and the now-extinct

English White Terrier The English White Terrier (also known as the White English Terrier) is an extinct breed of dog. The English White Terrier is the failed show ring name of a pricked-ear version of the white fox-working terriers that have existed in Great Britain ...

. These dogs were used as ratters, and gambling on their prowess in killing rats was a favorite hobby of their owners. Some of these dogs have been crossed with

Greyhound The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurge ...

Whippet The Whippet is a dog breed of medium size. It is a sighthound breed that originated in England, descended from the Greyhound. Whippets today still strongly resemble a smaller Greyhound. Part of the hound group, Whippets have relatively few ...

s or

Italian Greyhound The Italian Greyhound ( it, Piccolo levriero Italiano, italic=no) is an Italian breed of small sighthound. It may also be called the Italian Sighthound. History Small dogs of sighthound type have long been popular with nobility and royalty. ...

s (for speed), and

Beagle The beagle is a breed of small scent hound, similar in appearance to the much larger foxhound. The beagle was developed primarily for hunting hare, known as beagling. Possessing a great sense of smell and superior tracking instincts, the ...

s or other

hound A hound is a type of hunting dog used by hunters to track or chase prey. Description Hounds can be contrasted with gun dogs that assist hunters by identifying prey and/or recovering shot quarry. The hound breeds were the first hunting dogs. T ...

s (for hunting ability)—extending the family to include a larger variety of purpose than the original ratter, or

Rat Terrier The Rat Terrier is an American dog breed with a background as a farm dog and hunting companion. They share much ancestry with the small hunting dogs known as feists. Common throughout family farms in the 1920s and 1930s, they are now recognize ...

Description

Feists are small to medium-sized dogs tall, and weigh , short-coated dogs with long legs. The ears are set high on the head and are button, erect, or short hang. The tail can be natural, bobtail, or docked. As feists are bred for hunting, not as show dogs, little to no consistency is seen in appearance (breed type), and they may be purebred,

crossbred A crossbreed is an organism with purebred parents of two different breeds, varieties, or populations. ''Crossbreeding'', sometimes called "designer crossbreeding", is the process of breeding such an organism, While crossbreeding is used to main ...

, or

mixed-breed dog A mongrel, mutt or mixed-breed dog is a dog that does not belong to one officially recognized breed and including those that are the result of intentional breeding. Although the term ''mixed-breed dog'' is sometimes preferred, many mongrel ...

s. They are identified more by the way they hunt and their size than by their appearance. Individual dogs can hunt in more than one way, but in general, feists work above ground to chase small prey, especially squirrels. This contrasts with terriers or

Dachshund The dachshund ( or ; German: "badger dog"), also known as the wiener dog, badger dog, and sausage dog, is a short-legged, long-bodied, hound-type dog breed. The dog may be smooth-haired, wire-haired, or long-haired, and comes in a variety of c ...

s, earth dogs that go to ground to kill or drive out the prey, usually rodents, rabbits, foxes, or badgers. Most feists have an extreme drive to chase rabbits, along with squirrels and other rodents. When hunting, feists, unlike hounds, are mostly silent on track until they tree a

squirrel Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squ ...

. They locate squirrels using their eyes, ears, and nose, then tree them barking loudly and circling the tree, in the same manner that a

coonhound A coonhound, colloquially a coon dog, is a type of scenthound, a member of the hound group. They are an American type of hunting dog developed for the hunting of raccoons, hence their name, and also for feral pigs, bobcats, cougars, and bears. ...

trees

raccoon The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the common raccoon to distinguish it from other species, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of , and a body weight of ...

s. When they have treed a squirrel, they chase the squirrel until it leaves their sight. During the chase, they wade through streams, leap over logs, and dash across roads to get to their prey. Leashing these dogs in the presence of squirrels is advisable. Although they put up a furious chase, feists rarely catch squirrels; they typically expect their owners to shoot them. Various named varieties within the feist type have been developed, including the

Mountain Feist The Treeing Feist is a breed of feist from the Southeastern United States. Originally considered a single breed, the Mountain Feist is now considered a separate breed with both being separately recognized by the United Kennel Club. History In ...

s, which includes the Baldwin Feist, Buckley Feist, DenMark Feist, Galla Creek Feist, Kemmer Feist, Lost Creek Feist, Sport-bred Feist, and Thornburg Feist. The Treeing Feists include the Atomic Feist, Barger Feist, Boggs Creek Feist, Original Cajun Squirrel Dog, Charlie Feist, Fleming Creek Squirrel Dog, Hickory Grounds Feist, Horse Creek Feist, Hurley Comb's-bred Feist,

Mountain Cur The Mountain Cur is a type of working dog that is bred specifically for treeing and trailing small game, like squirrel and raccoons. They are also used for hunting and baying big game like bear and wild boar as well as being an all-purpose f ...

, Mullins Feist, Redwood Feist, Riverun Feist, Shaderidge, and

Etymology

The word "feist" is described in'' Webster's Third New International Dictionary'' as from the obsolete word "fysting", meaning "breaking wind, in such expressions as fysting dog or fysting hound". Feist is defined as "1. chiefly dial: a small dog of uncertain ancestry..." The word feisty – "energetic, belligerent, esp. if small" – is derived from the dog, which is small and energetic.

History

The feist is not a new type of dog. Written accounts of the dogs go back centuries, with several spelling variations seen.

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...

referred to them in his diary in 1770 when describing a dog as "a small feist-looking yellow cur."

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

wrote about the "fice" dog in his poem, "The Bear Hunt".

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...

mentions the "fice dog" in ''

The Sound and the Fury ''The Sound and the Fury'' is a novel by the American author William Faulkner. It employs several narrative styles, including stream of consciousness. Published in 1929, ''The Sound and the Fury'' was Faulkner's fourth novel, and was not immedi ...

'', but uses the spelling "fyce" in the stories "Was" and "The Bear" from the collection '' Go Down, Moses'': "a brave fyce dog is killed by a bear". In her 1938 novel ''

The Yearling ''The Yearling'' is a novel by American writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, published in March 1938. It was the main selection of the Book of the Month Club in April 1938. It won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel. It was the best-selling n ...

'', author

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (August 8, 1896 – December 14, 1953)
accessed December 8, 2014. was an

uses the spelling of "feice" to refer to this dog. Claude Shumate, who wrote about the feist for ''Full Cry'' magazine, believed that the feist was descended from Native American dogs, mixed with small

s from Britain, and was kept as early as the 17th century (''Full Cry'', December, 1987). The breed was popularized by President Teddy Roosevelt, who frequently hunted with a feist named Skip, belonging to his son, Archie, and a

named Jack, belonging to his son, Kermit.

Similar breeds

Similar dogs are the

Smooth Smooth may refer to: Mathematics * Smooth function, a function that is infinitely differentiable; used in calculus and topology * Smooth manifold, a differentiable manifold for which all the transition maps are smooth functions * Smooth algebrai ...

and Wire Fox Terriers, originally developed to flush out foxes for hunters in England (but now primarily kept for

conformation show A dog show is an event where dogs are exhibited. A conformation show, also referred to as a ''breed show'', is a kind of dog show in which a judge, familiar with a specific dog breed, evaluates individual purebred dogs for how well the dogs ''c ...

ing and as pets), and the

Jack Russell Terrier The Jack Russell Terrier is a small terrier that has its origins in fox hunting in England. It is principally white-bodied and smooth, rough or broken-coated and can be any colour. Small tan and white terriers that technically belong to oth ...

, used for ratting. Fox Terriers and feists are often predominantly white so as to be visible to hunters. Many other variants of this type exist, such as the

Russell Terrier The Jack Russell Terrier is a small terrier that has its origins in fox hunting in England. It is principally white-bodied and smooth, rough or broken-coated and can be any colour. Small tan and white terriers that technically belong to othe ...

Parson Russell Terrier The Parson Russell Terrier is a breed of small white terrier that was the original Fox Terrier of the 18th century. The breed is named after the Reverend Jack Russell, credited with the creation of this type of dog. It is the recognised conforma ...

and

, with many locally developed purebred dog breeds. The original fox terrier type was documented in England in the 18th century.

Mountain Feist and Jack Russell Terriers

Because of similarities in appearance, Mountain Feists are sometimes mistaken for Jack Russell Terriers, particularly in shelters and dog pounds. However, certain physical characteristics separate the two, and can be easy to identify to the trained eye. The coat of a feist is generally softer and smoother than that of a rough-coated Jack Russell. Its legs are longer and the tail of a Mountain Feist is usually shorter than that of a Jack Russell. Despite some physical similarities, however, the behavior and temperament of a Mountain Feist and a Jack Russell are often quite different. Most feists are fairly quiet dogs, and lack the tendency toward excessive barking demonstrated by some Jack Russells and other hunting dogs. Jack Russells also tend to be more combative. Finally, while active, most Mountain Feists do not generally exhibit the frenetic energy of Jack Russells. Some Mountain Feist bloodlines were indeed bred down from Jack Russell Terriers, crossing most likely with treeing dogs, such as Treeing Walker Hounds. Jack Russell traits often remain visible despite this crossbreeding. These descendants usually are mostly white in color with brown or black around the head and neck, with tall stand up, or button ears. These dogs usually hunt in packs in the Appalachian and

Ozark Mountains The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant portio ...

. They use their eyes and ears exceptionally well.

Feist and Rat Terrier

Crossing of feist dogs has occurred since they are bred primarily for performance as hunting dogs. Despite considerable confusion, Mountain Feist or Treeing Feist dogs are their own unique breed. Where Rat Terriers are considered a specific breed within the feist type. Because the word "feist" refers to a general type of dog just as "

" and "terrier" refer to a group of breeds, Rat Terriers are still often called "feists". The terriers brought to the US in the 1890s from England were crossed with feist dogs already here, in addition to some of the

toy A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include toy blocks, board games, and dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and pet ...

breeds (

Toy Fox Terrier The Toy Fox Terrier is a small terrier breed of dog, directly descended from the larger Smooth Fox Terrier but since 1936, it has been registered in the USA with the UKC as a separate breed. Description Appearance Toy Fox Terriers are ...

, and Chihuahua) resulting in a smaller feist type dog with a more uniform appearance.

References

External links

American Treeing Feist Association
at nationalkennelclub.com
UKC Treeing Feist Standard (2004)
(archived)
Feist dog trees a panther (early 1800s)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Feist (Dog) Hunting dogs Gundogs