Staffordshire Bull Terrier Trivia
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49 free Staffordshire Bull Terrier trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Staffordshire Bull Terrier trivia quiz covers the Staffy from the Black Country fighting pits to the Kennel Club's list of recommended family dogs. History questions run through the bull-and-terrier crosses of the 1800s, the Cruelty to Animals Act 1835 that ended baiting but pushed dog fighting underground, James Hinks's rival 'White Cavalier', Joseph Dunn's 1935 campaign, the founding meeting at the Old Cross Guns pub in Cradley Heath, the first champions Lady Eve and Gentleman Jim, and the long road to AKC recognition in 1974. The breed section covers the standard's colours, height and weight, temperament (bold, fearless and totally reliable, with a special affinity for children), life expectancy, demodicosis and hereditary cataract findings, and the pit-bull confusion that led PETA to lobby for a ban under the Dangerous Dogs Act. The 2017 DNA study tracing bull-and-terrier types to Ireland, the 'Irish Staffordshire' misnomer, and famous dogs Watchman, Cooper and Jock of the Bushveld round it out. Questions run from easy to expert with a difficulty score on each, so it suits a family quiz or a devoted Staffy owner. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and breed references and each question carries its citation. Also try our Dogs and Bull Terrier quizzes.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Staffordshire Bull Terrier originated in Staffordshire and the northern parts of which city?
Birmingham
Birmingham. Its dealer James Hinks refined these dogs into the showy Bull Terrier, but fanciers in the neighbouring Black Country stayed loyal to the old fighting type, which became the Stafford.
Q 02The Stafford's breed standard likens its low-set tail to which old-fashioned object?
A pump handle
A pump handle. The tail is left undocked and should taper to a point with barely a curl, so one that is too long or badly curled is faulted in the show ring.
Q 03What did crosses with Staffords bring into the Bull Terrier breed?
Coloured coats
Coloured coats. Bull Terrier breeders crossed back to Staffords for colour while they were fixing the egg-shaped head, and historians say every coloured Bull Terrier descends from that blood.
Q 04Which act of Parliament outlawed bull-baiting and bear-baiting in Britain?
Cruelty to Animals Act 1835
Cruelty to Animals Act 1835. With the bull rings closed, the gamblers moved into cellars and back rooms, where dogs could be matched against each other out of sight of the law.
Q 05Before breed names existed, bull-and-terrier crosses like the early Stafford were known as what?
Half-and-halfs
Half-and-halfs. The label marked them as mongrels rather than a breed, yet these rough crosses became the starting point for several pedigree breeds, the Stafford among them.
Q 06Besides fighting each other, Victorian pit dogs like the early Stafford were wagered on killing which animals against the clock?
Rats
Rats. A set number were tipped into the pit and the clock ran until the last one was dead, a wager that kept cellar pits busy long after bull-baiting was outlawed.
Q 07According to his son, which breed did James Hinks cross in when creating the Bull Terrier?
Dalmatian
Dalmatian. Admirers of the old fighting type wanted nothing to do with such outcrosses and kept their own dogs apart, the line that became the Stafford.
Q 08What nickname did the Bull Terrier, the Stafford's show-ring cousin, earn in Victorian Britain?
The White Cavalier
The White Cavalier. Dealer James Hinks turned the old pit dog into an elegant show dog for gentlemen, leaving the working man's rougher dogs to become the Stafford.
Q 09Sui, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, appeared on television beside which wildlife presenter?
Steve Irwin
Steve Irwin. She rode along on his crocodile-catching trips for 16 years, and he gave his daughter Bindi the middle name Sue in her honour.
Q 10Which rescue charity told Britain in 2011 that Staffies are 'softer than you think'?
Battersea
Battersea. More than a third of the dogs coming through the London home's doors in 2013 were Staffies, and its campaign answered the stigma with stories of rescued family pets.
Q 11What does 'gameness', the trait prized in the Stafford's pit-fighting ancestors, describe?
Refusing to quit
Refusing to quit. Under the old pit rules a dog that could still drag itself across to its opponent's corner won the match, even if it was too hurt to go on fighting.
Q 12The Stafford is shown as a terrier, a group name that comes from the Latin word for what?
Earth
Earth. True terriers were bred to follow foxes and badgers into their burrows, while the Stafford came by the name second-hand, through the terrier half of its ancestry.
Q 13In which classic novel does a Stafford hide the runaway heroes in a removal van?
The Hundred and One Dalmatians
Q 21Breed histories trace the Stafford's ancestry back to which ancient type of dog?
Mastiffs
Mastiffs. Their descendants were set on bulls and bears in Tudor baiting rings, and most histories say it was those baiting dogs, crossed with terriers, that produced the fighting dogs of the pit.
Q 22Under what name did the AKC first recognise the AmStaff in 1936?
Staffordshire Terrier
Staffordshire Terrier. The AKC had also weighed Yankee Terrier and American Bull Terrier, and it added 'American' only in 1972, when it was preparing to admit the British Stafford and needed to tell the two apart.
Q 23How do the Staffordshire regiments mark the death of Watchman, their Stafford mascot?
With a military funeral
The Hundred and One Dalmatians. In Dodie Smith's novel a gruff Staffordshire waves the sooty fugitives into the empty van his 'pets' are driving to London, and even offers to deal with Cruella himself.
Q 14A 2017 genome-wide study traced all bull-and-terrier breeds back to the terriers of which country?
Ireland
Ireland. The study dated the crosses to the 1860s, which fits old accounts of dog contests being popular there at a time when stud books were too unreliable to record such matings.
Q 15Butchers once had bulls baited by dogs like the Stafford's ancestors in the belief that it did what?
Made the meat tender
Made the meat tender. The belief made baiting part of the butcher's trade as well as a spectacle, and it appears at one time to have been required before a bull could be butchered for sale.
Q 16Where did Black Country fighting dogs, the Stafford's forebears, usually live between bouts?
In their owners' homes
In their owners' homes. Unlike fighting dogs abroad they were never kept in kennels or compounds, so when the pits closed the step from fireside lodger to family pet was a short one.
Q 17Which coat colour does the Stafford's breed standard reject outright?
Black and tan
Black and tan. The Kennel Club calls the colour unacceptable and the AKC disqualifies it outright, so a dog marked that way is out of the ring however sound the rest of it is.
Q 18Where did fanciers meet in 1935 to found the first Staffordshire Bull Terrier club?
In a pub
In a pub. They gathered at the Old Cross Guns in Cradley Heath, where they formed their club and drew up the breed's first written standard.
Q 19Film star Tom Walls, a pioneer Stafford breeder of the 1930s, also owned the winner of which classic horse race?
The Derby
The Derby. Walls trained April the Fifth himself at his Surrey stable and won the 1932 race with him, three years before one of his dogs was among the first six Staffords registered.
Q 20Gentleman Jim and Lady Eve made Stafford history in 1939 by becoming the breed's first what?
Champions
Champions. The dog and the bitch both took their titles on the same day at a show in Bath, four years after the Kennel Club first admitted the breed.
With a military funeral. Watchman V went to his in 2022 in a coffin carried by soldier pallbearers at Burton upon Trent, the town that presents each new mascot and remembers the old ones.
Q 24Petey, the ring-eyed dog registered among the AKC's first AmStaffs, starred in which film series?
Our Gang
Our Gang. The comedy shorts, later shown on television as The Little Rascals, used a father and then his son in the part, and the painted ring moved from one eye to the other when the son took over.
Q 25Which of these is an accepted Stafford coat colour?
Blue
Blue. Red, fawn, white and black are in the standard too, but merle is not a Stafford colour at all: the AKC standard says the pattern does not exist genetically in the breed.
Q 26How do a Stafford's ears sit, according to the Staffordshire Bull Terrier standard?
Folded at the tip
Folded at the tip. The standard asks for small 'rose or half-pricked' ears that are left natural, never cropped, and a judge will fault a dog whose ears stand fully upright or hang right down.
Q 27The Kennel Club's breed standard notes the Stafford's particular affinity with whom?
Children
Children. The standard calls the breed 'highly intelligent and affectionate especially with children', the trait behind its old nickname, the nanny dog.
Q 28What grooming routine do vets and kennel clubs recommend for a Stafford's short coat?
A weekly brush
A weekly brush. The coat never tangles, but it does shed, so the point of the weekly going-over with a brush or hound glove is simply to lift out the dead hair.
Q 29A UK study found young Staffords unusually prone to demodicosis, a skin disease caused by what?
Mites
Mites. Demodex mites normally live harmlessly in a dog's hair follicles and cause disease only when they multiply out of control, which the study found in 2.14% of Staffords under two.
Q 30L-2-HGA, an inherited disease that Stafford breeders DNA-test for, mainly damages which part of the body?
The brain
The brain. An acid the body cannot clear builds up in the nervous system, bringing a wobbly gait, tremors and seizures, but a DNA test now lets breeders avoid ever pairing two carriers.