My friend has been bought a miniture jack russell.  Is there such a breed?  I thought jack russells were small in any case.  Do you think it might be a cross?

No such breed, your friend has been caught!!!

There are those who believe they have a miniature Yorkshire Terrier, they do not.
My mum came back from shopping & someone told her they had a miniature Patterdale & it was the only one in Wiltshire & worth alot of money!!! They were caught aswell!!!

There are
Miniature Dachshunds
Miniature Poodles
Miniature Pinsher
Miniature Schnauzer
End of!!

A good sales tactic for selling runts!!

I did a search of the area they live in to see if they were on any site.  I saw some that it could have been reading that they had short legs.  Also there was a jacowowa.  Makes you laugh.  I said friend but really it it just someone I know in passing.  Anyone else and I would have asked searching questions.

Actually the more commonly seen Jackie (often known as the Hunt Terrier) isn't a recognised breed in any case.   The Parson Russell Terrier is.   There certainly can be a variety of sizes in the Jackie (no Breed Standard), together with coat type - short coat and a more wire coat, but there is NO breed known as a Miniature Jack Russell.    With all the mix-breeding going on these days (sigh) there's no telling whether this puppy was the result of Jackie to Jackie.

http://www.parsonrussellterrierclub.co.uk/breed.html

Indeed. Not only is there no such thing as a Miniature Jack Russell, there's not really any such recognisable breed as a Jack Russell - not if you mean the short legged, barrel chested terrier one sees everywhere. There is, to use the KC phrase, "no verifiable ancestry" and no recognised breed standard. The Parson Russell Terrier is a very different dog.

Adding a prefix which appears to make the dog special or unusual seems to be incredibly common among dodgy dog sellers and bybs though.

Putting "pocket" before "beagle", for instance. Even though there has been no such thing as a pocket beagle for a very long time, people like this not only manage to breed "purebred pocket beagles", but to boast about not crossbreeding

Their advice would be quite comical if their dogs weren't such a travesty:

"Pocket Beagles can take on many proportions but still be in the standard guidelines of pocket beagles...Pocket beagles who are on the smaller end are very adorable and could be great for you but you need to realize that as pocket beagles get smaller they CAN (not always) lose their "beagle" look. Sometimes they get narrower snouts, are more barrel chested and have a very broad disproportionate (according to the beagle look) forehead. Some of the really small pocket beagles take on some of the looks of a Chihuahua in our opinion. If you don't mind this look then that's fabulous. At HGPB we personally (just our preference) like our pocket beagles to resemble standard beagle proportion as closely as possible. So while our pocket beagles are not the very small type (9 inches or so) they look very much like beagles and are very well proportioned."

So it sounds like if you want a really small "pocket beagle", they will give you a (presumably ersatz) Chihuahua, and tell you that "that's how the smaller pocket beagle come out".

You couldn't make it up.

That is a very weird website. :-(

> there's not really any such recognisable breed as a Jack Russell

There may not be a KC breed standard for the Jack Russell but it certainly exists as a breed. The type is variable and it does not have recorded ancestry but I am sure most people would recognise one. So a very small version  is a miniature Jack Russell I would think. If it is not a KC breed then surely the seller is free to define the size or any other feature how they want

No such thing.

I had an employee who bought a 'Miniature Jack Russell', when she brought it into work, to show it off. Passing the puppy over for a 'cuddle', I immediately noticed it's milk eyes, puppy grunts and it's lack of mobility. In my opinion the puppy was 4-5 weeks old.  I questioned her about it and to my disbelief, "Yeah, the vet thinks that she's not 8 weeks either". What sort of person takes a puppy away from it's mum at 4 weeks!

By the time the puppy was 16 weeks old it was much bigger than she ever expected. They couldn't handle the boisterous nature of the JRT and ended up being rehomed. This is a person I struggled to get along with....

>There are <br />Miniature Dachshunds<br />Miniature Poodles<br />Miniature Pinsher<br />Miniature Schnauzer<br />End of!!

Miniature Bull Terriers too :)

By newyork   Date 01.01.14 12:16 GMT

> there's not really any such recognisable breed as a Jack Russell

"There may not be a KC breed standard for the Jack Russell but it certainly exists as a breed. The type is variable and it does not have recorded ancestry but I am sure most people would recognise one. So a very small version  is a miniature Jack Russell I would think. If it is not a KC breed then surely the seller is free to define the size or any other feature how they want"

I think that's a very fair point. My post now seems rather narrow-minded and intolerant.

> Miniature Bull Terriers too :-)

I knew there would be one I had forgotten...

>I had an employee who bought a 'Miniature Jack Russell', when she brought it into work, to show it off. Passing the puppy over for a 'cuddle', I immediately noticed it's milk eyes, puppy grunts and it's lack of mobility. In my opinion the puppy was 4-5 weeks old.  I questioned her about it and to my disbelief, "Yeah, the vet thinks that she's not 8 weeks either". What sort of person takes a puppy away from it's mum at 4 weeks!<br />

I met a lady once with a similar story, she had no dog experience so accepted that it was 8 weeks old when told by the seller. When she got it home she couldn't get it to eat anything so took it to the vet who told her it was too young to have been weaned and sent her home with milk. The lady was so upset both for the puppy and her own naivety.

I guess some people just want rid asap so they don't have the bother and the mess and don't care about the welfare of the pups or the mum.

Me too - I recently met someone who'd bought a Chihuahua cross pup at a country fair.  I did a bit of recalculation and guessed it was about 5 weeks when she'd bought it...