Dogs that did not look the part or which were deemed to be not of the quality desired, were shot. At one point the men had 700 dogs in their kennels, and not a single dog was allowed to be placed outside of the kennel.

Dogs with a lot of the white color and spotted dogs were selected and eliminated from further breeding.'The breeding program for the Jagdterrier was massive in scale and unwavering in its selection criteria.

The beautiful dark color continued to be dominate. The picture changed, though, when we bred our four 'originals' with our well-trained old hunting fox terriers. No wonder - after all, the parents weren't real hunting dogs. First we tried inbreeding, pairing brothers with sisters. From the viewpoint of hunting these four dogs were not bad, although they left much to desire. As Gruenewald later wrote::'We were glad to own fox terriers with the hunting color, and we hoped to use these four puppies successfully in breeding to establish a hunting fox terrier breed (jagdfoxterrier-stamm). Herbert Lackner, men with land for a kennel, and the financial means to support it over a decade-long quest.An early problem was that the Black and Tan Terriers selected as the core breeding stock and deemed 'ideal hunters' based on color alone were, in fact, not all that great at hunting. Gruenewald was a 'cynologist' (a self-styled dog man with an interest in genetics) and Zangenbert was a dedicated hunter with an interest in fox terriers.It did not take much prodding on Heck's part to convince Gruenewald and Zangenbert that what the world needed was a true German Hunt Terrier to compete (and of course trump) the British and American fox terriers in the field.Gruenewald and Zangenbert added to their team Chief Forester R. A fox terrier won again in 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1915, 1916, and 1917.A fascination with terriers, fervent nationalism, and a propensity towards genetic engineering were braided together when Lutz Heck presented four black and tan Fell terriers-similar to what we now would call a Patterdale Terrier-to Carl Eric Gruenewald and Walter Zangenbert. The Westminster Dog Show was begun in 1907, and the first winner was a fox terrier. The Allied Terrier Show was taken over by Charles Crufts in 1886, and was the largest dog show in the world after World War I, while the first breed-specific dog publication anywhere was a magazine devoted to fox terriers. A social climber and decided sycophant, Lutz Heck and his brother Heinz Heck were men who courted power and counted among their friends both Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring.Even as nationalism and an interest in genetic engineering were rising in Germany, terriers were also rising to the height of fashion in much of Europe and the United States. Heck was also instrumental in the recreation of an extinct species (or subspecies) of zebra called the 'quagga'.Heck's interest in dogs was driven in part by his passion for hunting, and in part by an over-heated nationalism that was mixed with a desire to see what could be done with selective breeding. Historyīetween the two World Wars, game managers in Germany were focused on getting rid of 'foreign' or introduced species, and bringing back now-extinct species that figured prominently in the mythology of the nation.One of the pioneers of this peculiar quest was Lutz Heck, the curator of the Berlin Zoo, who went on to 'back breed' primitive cattle and horses to 'recreate' the extinct aurochs (the kind of wild cattle seen in the cave paintings at Lascaux, France) and the tarpan (a kind of primitive forest pony). This breed of terrier is also called the German Hunt Terrier.

The Jagdterrier is a type of working terrier originating in Germany, that is used for hunting quarry both above and underground.

Old time mountain feist dog breed