Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the Jack Russell Terrier

I’d like in this article to consider the Jack Russell Terrier as a designed artefact. Some might object to this characterization, but the JRT did not evolve, it was created with a specific purpose in mind.

I’ve been a fan of the breed for fifty years. I got my first one at 11, and I have never had any other kind of dog. If you are not a fan, you might not know that they are capable of living longer than pretty much any other kind of dog. They can outrun and outfight any animal their size, and many much larger. Their top speed of 38 mph is scarcely slower than the world’s fastest dog, the greyhound, despite the disparity in size. They have been known to protect their owners from lions and bears, though some have given their lives in the attempt.

Most of this is designed in. Parson John (aka Jack) Russell bred them to work all day alongside horses and hounds, then go into a fox’s den to drive them out if they sought to hide from the hunters underground. Not only can they do all of this, they love to do it. They were bred to be athletic, tough, intelligent, fearless, aggressive and noisy. If used for their intended purpose (hunting), these are all virtues.

However, the vast majority of JRTs are not used for hunting nowadays, but as housepets, due to an unforeseen consequence of Parson Jack’s breeding programme. Alongside their great longevity is a great cuteness. Films like “The Artist” and “The Mask”, as well as TV series like “Frasier” showcase cute JRTs.

Someone must have spent a great deal of time training these dogs. Training JRTs is no small task. Getting them to understand what you want is easy. Getting them to care about what you want is rather trickier. They are an independent-minded dog. They require careful commissioning if they are to do anything other than run wild in search of something to kill.

As housepets, they have major design shortcomings. Their design was optimized for robustness, rather than safety. Their fearlessness and speed are not advantages when mixing with traffic. Their intelligence and aggression means that they are easily bored, and if they are allowed to get bored, they will invent their own games. Jack Russell games involve a lot of noise, destruction and quite possibly death. Even JRTs who have lived together for many years are not reliably safe to house in the same enclosure, and there can be no guarantees that they will not bite people (especially children). They will not tolerate abuse, and they may seek to assert dominance if not properly trained. Amongst their other areas of notability, JRTs bite more people than any other breed every year in the UK.

In essence, a JRT is a honey-badger inadvertently disguised as a cuddly toy. When used for their intended purpose, their design characteristics are features. These features only seem like glitches when they are misused, or not commissioned properly.

Human nature being what it is, a good designer should consider the possibility that the thing that they are designing might be misused. Parson Jack however had no way of knowing that his teeny tiny attack dogs would later be expected to serve in a role they were so ill-suited for by design.

Dogs are like people in that there is more to them than their nature, so JRTs can with careful socialization (and an understanding of their true nature) often be rendered reasonably civilized. There is however nothing which can be done to make them entirely safe at any speed, rather like the American cars which were subject of the book whose title inspired mine for this article.