Jack Russell Terrier Trivia
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50 free Jack Russell Terrier trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Jack Russell Terrier trivia quiz starts with the sporting parson of North Devon and Trump, the terrier he bought from an Oxford milkman in 1819, then follows the breed through the English White Terrier ancestry, the Fox Terrier Club, Heinemann's badger club, the Bull Terrier cross and the long fight over kennel-club recognition that produced the Parson Russell Terrier and a Ninth Circuit court case. The standard is covered too: heights, the 51 per cent white rule, broken coats, docked tails as handholds and the red fox that sets the size limit, plus health from skunk toxic shock and record lifespans to the TGM1 and KCNJ10 genes. Then the famous dogs: Nipper of HMV, Bothie at both Poles, George the New Zealand hero, Patron the Ukrainian bomb-sniffer, Dilyn, Chalky and his ales, Moose and Enzo as Eddie, Uggie's Palm Dog, Soccer of Wishbone, Sykes, K.K. Slider and Max. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our Dogs and Frasier quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Jack Russell Terrier is named after a clergyman who hunted foxes in which part of England?
North Devon
North Devon. After university Russell took his first terrier home there and spent the rest of his life, more than 60 years, breeding terriers to work with the local hunts.
Q 02The word 'terrier', as in Jack Russell Terrier, comes from the Latin word for what?
Earth
Earth. 'Terrier' is short for the Old French chien terrier, an 'earth dog', because these dogs chase their quarry down into its burrow.
Q 03While a student at Oxford, John Russell bought the first Jack Russell terrier from whom?
A local milkman
A local milkman. Russell met the man out with his terrier and, his biographer wrote, 'never budged from the spot' until he had talked him into selling her.
Q 04What was the name of the female terrier that founded John Russell's Jack Russell line?
Trump
Trump. Russell bought her the moment he saw her, and his biographer called her 'such an animal as Russell had only seen in his dreams'.
Q 05What did John Russell reportedly pride himself on regarding his terriers?
They never tasted blood
They never tasted blood. An obituary in 1883 recorded the boast: a terrier's job was to bay at its quarry until it bolted, never to kill it.
Q 06In Swimbridge, where John Russell was vicar for nearly 50 years, what is still named The Jack Russell?
The village pub
The village pub. Russell moved to another parish in his eighties, but when he died in 1883 he was brought back to Swimbridge and buried in the churchyard.
Q 07In 1873 the hunting clergyman John Russell became a founder member of which organisation?
The Kennel Club
The Kennel Club. Russell judged the fox terriers at one of its early London shows, yet his own terriers were seldom if ever seen in the show ring.
Q 08In 1894 Arthur Heinemann founded a club to breed Jack Russell-type terriers for digging out which animal?
Badgers
Badgers. Heinemann's Badger Club wanted a stronger dog than Russell's, and Bull Terrier blood was probably added to give its terriers the nerve to face one underground.
Q 09Why were John Russell's terriers bred longer in the leg than most burrowing terriers?
To keep up with the hounds
To keep up with the hounds. His terriers ran across country with the pack, then went underground when the fox did, so they needed stamina in a body small enough for a burrow.
Q 10Beth and Bluebell, rescue Jack Russells from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, were adopted by which royal?
Queen Camilla
Queen Camilla. She adopted both from Battersea; Bluebell, she said, had been found wandering in woods, hairless and 'virtually dead', before the home nursed her back to health.
Q 11America's Jack Russell club, unlike most dog registries, will register a terrier only once it is what?
Fully grown
Fully grown. A Jack Russell must be at least a year old and pass a vet's check on its own merits, and the club says having registered parents guarantees nothing.
Q 12Under what name was John Russell's type of terrier officially recognised for British shows in 1990?
Parson Jack Russell Terrier
Parson Jack Russell Terrier. 'Jack' was dropped from the name in 1999, and the plain Jack Russell Terrier had to wait until 2016 for recognition of its own.
Q 13Milo, a Jack Russell, steals scenes from Jim Carrey in which 1994 comedy?
The Mask
Q 21The short-legged show Jack Russell now seen at dog shows worldwide was developed mainly in which country?
Australia
Australia. Emigrants took working terriers out with them, a breed club formed there in 1972, and the type it refined for the show ring is the one the rest of the world later adopted.
Q 22In which relay dog sport are small Jack Russells prized because the smallest dog sets the hurdle height?
Flyball
Flyball. Four dogs race in relay over hurdles to a box that fires out a tennis ball, and one quick little 'height dog' lets the whole team jump lower.
Q 23In the go-to-ground trials run by America's Jack Russell club, terriers race through a tunnel to which caged animal?
A rat
The Mask. Milo fetches the keys to spring his owner from a police cell, then pulls on the magic mask himself to fight off the gangsters.
Q 14America's Jack Russell club fought AKC recognition for decades, fearing the breed would lose what?
Its working ability
Its working ability. The club argued that the show ring had reshaped the Fox Terrier until it could no longer follow a fox underground, and it barred its members from registering dogs with the AKC.
Q 15America's Jack Russell club magazine shares which John Wayne western's title?
True Grit
True Grit. The magazine once doubled as a blacklist: the club printed the names of members who registered terriers with the rival AKC, and in 2005 a federal appeals court rejected a challenge from two of them.
Q 16Show judges 'span' a Jack Russell with two hands to check the size of what?
Its chest
Its chest. The hands must meet around the ribs behind the elbows, because a fox can be spanned that way and a deeper-chested terrier could not follow one through its tunnels.
Q 17Why did hunters prefer mostly white terriers?
To tell them from the fox
To tell them from the fox. One early writer warned that reddish terriers were 'in the clamour of the chase taken for the fox', and the American club's standard still demands a coat more than 51% white.
Q 18What is a 'broken' coat on a Jack Russell?
A combination of smooth and rough
A combination of smooth and rough. It looks much like a smooth coat but carries trace hair on the head, face, legs or body, and it must stay harsh enough to keep out the weather.
Q 19Why was a working Jack Russell's docked tail traditionally left a few inches long?
To give a handhold
To give a handhold. A hunter could reach into the burrow, grip the tail and pull the terrier out backwards, which is why the American standard asks for about four inches.
Q 20A fidgety pup named Jack Russell, who is a Jack Russell, stars in the 'Army' episode of which cartoon?
Bluey
Bluey. Jack struggles to sit still or remember instructions, until playing Army with his new friend Rusty turns out to be the game that helps him focus.
A rat. It sits safe behind bars at the end of a tunnel up to 30 feet long, and the terrier is timed on how fast it gets there and how keenly it barks and digs at the cage.
Q 24In the US, a working Jack Russell can suffer a dangerous toxic shock after cornering which animal underground?
A skunk
A skunk. Sprayed at close range in an airless den, a terrier can collapse within minutes: one club report describes a dog dug out in convulsions and revived by mouth-to-nose breathing.
Q 25In a 2022 UK study that ranked the Jack Russell longest-lived at 12.7 years, which breed came last at 4.5?
French Bulldog
French Bulldog. Flat-faced breeds sat at the bottom of the table, though the authors warned that a recent boom in puppies had left their sample of French Bulldogs unusually young.
Q 26A Jack Russell that hops a few strides on three legs, then runs on normally, most likely has a problem with what?
A kneecap
A kneecap. In a luxating patella it slips out of its groove, so the dog carries the leg for a few strides, then runs on as if nothing had happened once it pops back.
Q 27To make Moose, the Jack Russell on Frasier, nuzzle his co-stars on cue, what was dabbed behind their ears?
Liver pâté
Liver pâté. His co-star John Mahoney gave the trick away: the dog famous for staring down Kelsey Grammer needed a little bribery to look affectionate on camera.
Q 28George, New Zealand's hero Jack Russell, was honoured after his death in 2007 with which American military medal?
A Purple Heart
A Purple Heart. Jerrell Hudman, a former US Marine wounded in Vietnam, read George's story in Texas and offered his own medal to the dog's grieving owner.
Q 29Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease, seen in young Jack Russells, destroys the ball of which joint?
The hip
The hip. The head of the thigh bone dies and crumbles, usually before the dog's first birthday, and vets treat it by removing the ball so the muscles form a 'false joint'.
Q 30Nipper, a Victorian terrier sometimes called part Jack Russell, is the dog in the logo of which British music brand?
HMV
HMV. It stands for His Master's Voice, a painting Edison's firm turned down; the Gramophone Company bought it only after the artist swapped the phonograph for one of its own machines.