American Canine Association

Breeds

Kerry Blue Terrier


History

Dating back to Ireland in the 1700's, the Kerry Blue terrier became the national terrier of Ireland. This breed is believed to be related to the Portuguese Water Dog, Irish Terriers and Irish Wolfhounds; though there is no exact evidence on which breeds created the Kerry Blue terrier as matter of fact. What we do know is that this breed is working dog like many other Terriers, and is able to work on the farm, with police, hunting and as a companion.

Appearance

This breed is a medium sized breed, with males and females measuring 17-20 inches in height and weighing 30-40 pounds in weight. This breed has a very rectangular shaped head, forming into a rectangular shaped muzzle, with a beard of hair hanging from it. Their two ears are small in size, triangular and folded forward at the top of their head. Their two eyes are small, round in shape and generally a dark brown to black in color. Their tail is short, (docked), an positioned upwards and firm. Their general body build is lean, active and very rectangular in appearance. Their single layer coat is very thick, soft and curly in texture. It is available in black, blue, all shade variations of these two colors and some have brown hairs mixed within.

Temperament

This breed is known to grow up and have dog aggression issues, so potential owners need to keep this in mind if they plan on having multiple dogs within their house hold. This breed otherwise, is a fantastic breed to add to most households, including ones with growing families. Wonderful with humans and children of all ages, the Kerry Blue Terrier is known for being silly, fun, playful and friendly. This breed, as all Terriers, needs a daily job and tasks to do in order to remain calm, happy and behaved. This breed requires early obedience classes and socialization. This breed requires a firm and confident owner who is consistent and sets early rules and boundaries within the home. This breed is very smart, determined and ready at all times. They cannot tolerate being left home alone for hours at a time. Best suited for active homes who are interested in training and teaching their dog tricks, jobs and tasks daily. This breed is loyal, protective and have a natural love for sports!

Grooming

This breed requires regular, professional grooming. Daily brushing and bathing when needed required.

Special Notes

Please fully educate yourself about the Kerry Blue Terrier prior to adding one to your family to ensure you are able to make a life long commitment, both physically and financially for your new family member. This breed requires a properly fenced in yard, or properly fitting harness and leash while outdoors at all times. This breed hair and eye issues, PNA and cerebellar atrophy. All dogs originate from wolves (Canis Lupus). Each breed of dog was originally created by mixing different breeds together in an effort to bring forth certain characteristics. Once a breeder has created acceptable “breed characteristics” within their bloodline and these “breed characteristics” have shown to be reliably reproduced in the offspring for three (3) generations, the bloodline may be upgraded from the category of “foundation stock” to “pure-bred”. The same “pure-bred” breed standards vary from different continents, countries, territories, regions, breed clubs, and canine pure-breed registries depending on the goals of their breeders. Dog DNA testing companies can have accurate results for a specific bloodline of a small colony of dogs. However, there are tens of thousands of different bloodlines in the world which have not yet been tested for marker baseline results by Dog DNA testing companies as of 2017. For this reason Dog DNA testing companies do not guarantee the 100% accuracy of their breed lineage results and will also show different marker results for the same pure-bred breed in different continents, countries, territories, regions, breed clubs, and canine pure-breed registries depending on the goals of their breeders.

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