The Scottish terrier has been immortalised as a Monopoly piece, a mascot for Radley handbags and an emblem for Walker’s shortbread. But its place in history appears to have done little to secure its future.
The Kennel Club will this week designate the breed “at watch” after only 406 puppies were logged by breeders last year.
In its heyday in the late 1930s, the Scottie was the third most popular breed in the country, behind wire fox terriers and cocker spaniels.
Today, however, the Scottish terrier joins the wire fox terrier on the Kennel Club’s “at watch” list for native breeds with just 300 to 450 registrations a year. This year for the first time the list will also include the English pointer and the rough collie.
Cocker spaniels have bucked the trend and remain in the top three almost 100 years later, alongside labrador retrievers and French bulldogs.
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Two statuesque dogs, the Bernese mountain and the English setter, have recorded the biggest rises in registrations in the past year, alongside miniature long-haired dachshunds, Yorkshire terriers and Jack Russell terriers.
Queen Victoria, Franklin D Roosevelt and Rudyard Kipling owned Scottish terriers, which were developed to hunt rats, foxes and badgers in the Highlands. They are strong-willed and require regular grooming. The breed has won “best in show” at Crufts twice, in 1929 and 2015.
Bill Lambert, spokesman for the club, which recognises 222 breeds, said: “People often opt for the well-known choices and simply forget to dig a little deeper, with the worrying knock-on effect that not only are some of our most iconic breeds in decline but also that people might not be getting the perfect match for them.”
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Anne Dauncey, 66, a Scottish terrier breeder from Shropshire, who has five dogs, said: “They’re incredibly intelligent dogs, loyal, they’ve got super personalities and characters. I think the only thing with them is that the coat needs to be trimmed and groomed regularly.”
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The Kennel Club has been monitoring breeds of British and Irish origin with fewer than 450 annual puppy registrations since 2004. This is the second time the Scottish terrier will be placed on the at-watch list, first appearing in 2018.
The club’s “vulnerable” list, for native breeds with fewer than 300 puppy registrations, includes Sussex spaniels, curly coated retrievers, otterhounds, Gordon setters, Irish red and white setters and Norwich and Manchester terriers.
The list is not a definitive guide because it relates to club registrations rather than births. The club reported no puppy registrations at all last year for the harrier, for example, a medium-sized hound similar to a foxhound or beagle. It was recognised as a breed in 2020 for the first time in 100 years, after being removed from the list in the 1920s when the number of breeders registering was negligible.
On the boom in Bernese mountain dogs, which can weigh about 50kg, Lambert said: “There are plenty of people who adapted their lifestyles to hybrid and remote working, and moved to the countryside and areas with more access to green spaces, which could be a reason that larger breeds, such as the Bernese mountain dog, have seen a boost in popularity.”
He said miniature long-haired dachshunds, whose registrations rose by 20 per cent, had become popular with people “living in smaller living spaces” and cities.
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He said: “There are a number of factors that affect the popularity of particular breeds, such as popular culture, celebrity ownership and the ever-growing influence of social media.
“Dachshunds, for example, have grown very popular with celebrities and on social media in recent years, but owners should be careful, as leaps in popularity can result in irresponsible breeders cashing in on a trend, without concern for health or welfare.”
When I adopted a rescue dog, was I helping unscrupulous breeders?
Last month my family and I adopted a miniature long-haired dachshund called Toffee from an animal rescue charity, a companion for our pedigree dachshund Betsy, who was bought at great expense from a reputable breeder.
Unlike our much-loved, much-indulged Betsy, who has been the centre of attention since she arrived in December 2022, Toffee, who is three, had endured terrible hardship during her short life.
She had been kept in an outdoor kennel, and it was clear from her soft paws and weak muscles that she had not been walked. She still needs to wear a pair of socks on her back paws or they bleed during her short pavement walks.
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She spun in circles, chasing her tail, which we were told was common in dogs who had been kept in confined spaces.
Despite being a young dog herself, she had been used to produce several litters before reaching a point at which she was not able to have any more.
I came across Toffee while researching another story about dogs and felt we were doing a good deed by adopting her from an animal rescue charity and giving her a loving home. But I began to worry as details emerged of her history. She had not been abandoned or confiscated. Instead, Toffee had been “surrendered” to a small charity by a breeder once she had finished producing lucrative pedigree litters. A long-haired dachshund puppy can sell for up to £5,000.
I learnt that breeders routinely gave their retired bitches and studs — the male dogs who father the litters — to this home counties rescue centre and other charities across the UK, seemingly free from consequences. The charities are then burdened with the cost of neutering them, typically £370 for a female dog, and rehabilitating them.
By adopting Toffee, had we just freed up a crate for the breeder to do the same to another dog? Are dog rescue charities offering a get-out-of-jail-free card to the breeders who abuse their goodwill?
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The practice is so prevalent that some charities specialise in taking in retired breeding bitches and studs from all sorts of places, from small breeders to puppy farms, when they have become surplus to requirements. They often collect them from the same premises again and again.
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The charities, quite reasonably, argue that if they did not take them in, unscrupulous breeders might neglect, abandon or kill the dogs. One volunteer told me they have to stay on side with the breeders to get the dogs out safely.
Donna Barton, who runs a dachshund breeding business in Oxfordshire called Bartondax, said: “It’s disgusting. No dog of ours will ever end up in a shelter or charity. It’s absolutely the breeder’s responsibility to rehome.”
When she needs to rehome a breeding bitch, she finds friends or family who want to adopt it, or people who are on her waiting list for an older dog. Many people want to avoid the difficult “puppy years” when they need to be house-trained and taught to sleep alone at night, and cannot be left for long, if at all, in the daytime.
The Kennel Club said only a minority of good breeders gave their former breeding dogs to charities, which then take a rehoming fee.
Members of the club’s assured breeders scheme must commit themselves to high welfare standards including providing suitable care for the animal’s lifetime. They are, however, not required to keep the dog.
Charities say rehoming fees generally do not cover, or come close to covering, the costs of caring for the dog before it is sent to new owners. In Toffee’s case we paid the charity £420 to adopt her. It had already spayed her. She had also had a seizure, requiring veterinary treatment, and was fed, housed and rehabilitated in foster care before she came to live with us.
The family who cared for Toffee for four months said they had fostered 180 dachshunds over several years for the same charity, including many taken from breeders. Often they had not been walked, house-trained or properly socialised.
A charity called Many Tears, in Carmarthenshire, specialises in taking in ex-breeding dogs “where previously some had a very bleak outlook”. It takes in more than 3,300 a year, sometimes travelling as far as Ireland to collect them.
On its website it states: “We are not here to police licensed breeders or try to regulate casual breeders, but to help dogs in need.” Responding to a frequently asked question about whether it is “enabling the breeders by making room for more”, it said: “When someone no longer wants a dog, they will get rid of it one way or another.”
Government rules state that people with council breeding licences must ensure no bitch gives birth to more than six litters over its lifetime, though most reputable breeders will not exceed three. But, with scant council and charity resources and these generous breeding laws, many poor breeders evade prosecution.
In the meantime, what can we, as a nation of dog-lovers, do? Charities say it all comes back to where we buy our puppies.
The founder of the charity from which Toffee was adopted said: “If the demand was not there for cheap, readily available puppies, then there would not be an endless supply of ex-breeding dogs. The reality is, by buying that puppy, they condemn the next litter, and so the cycle continues.”
Perhaps if no one had bought any of Toffee’s pups, her breeder would have been forced to shut up shop. The fate of our wonderful dog would have been uncertain, but the cycle would have ended.
Toffee now sleeps on a wool bed softer than my own, has a rucksack to sit in when she is tired on woodland walks and has a new best friend in Betsy, whom she follows wherever she goes. It is a good life — and it is difficult to have regrets about that.
