After yesterday’s post about the Benji the Manchester Terrier I thought I’d do some research on what a Manchester Terrier actually is. At first glance he looks like a smaller Dobmerman, sharing the colouring with that or a Rotweiler. A quick look on Wikipedia confirms this. Apparently a breed created in medieval times in the UK for the purposes of killing rats. The dog would be put in a pit with rats and punters would bet on how quickly he could kill the rats.

Further investigation would show that he could have been bred from the now extict Black and Tan terrier crossed with a Whippet for speed. Manchesterterrier.com goes further to say that the American Kennel Club recognises two varieties. These are the toy (weighing under 12 pounds) and the standard (which can weigh in between 12 and 22 pounds).

They apparently make good household pets being clean, virtually odorless and adaptable to both location and dietary needs.

See more at Manchester Terrier.com and also on Wikipedia

New! We've just starting a message board and discussion forum over on the Toxic Byte Pets Forum. It's a bit lonely over there at the moment, but feel free to join in and participate!

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 10th, 2005 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Dog Breeds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.