Scroll down for a musical launch to this post:

Another version of the ad, this one from 1973, was set at a dog show:

Ken-L Ration was a big name in dog food back in the day. Introduced by the Chappel brothers in 1922,  Ken-L Ration (a play on the WWII era, K-ration), was the first canned dog food in the United States, and, sad to say, it was horsemeat. Ken-L Ration was such a success that by the mid-1930s, the Chappels were breeding horses just for dog food, and slaughtering 50,000 of them a year.

Sigh. We know.

In 1995, Quaker Oats, which had bought Ken-L Ration in 1940, sold it to H. J. Heinz Company. In 2020, the brand was sold to Gespa Brands, a subsidiary of Grupo Pilar S.A.  The trademark for Ken-L Ration is now owned by Retrobrands. 

In its day, canned dog food, of which Ken-L Ration was a big name, had a 90% share of the market. Its clever marketing techniques included jingles that were on everyone’s lips, and earlier, you saw their most popular tune, “My dog is better than your dog.”  The jingle was based on the song, “My Dog’s Bigger Than Your Dog” written by Tom Paxton, who himself would go on to big things, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

As is so often the case on these pages, we take a tortured route to get to the real point of the post, though in our defense, it was the lyrics of the aforementioned jingle that gave us the idea:

My dog’s faster than your dog,
My dog’s bigger than yours.
My dog’s better cause he gets Ken-L Ration,
My dog’s better than yours.

Here is where we take a “plot twist,” and one that presses upon your tolerance for taking a stretch. We always assume that a bigger dog has the upper hand in a situation, both literally and figuratively, but in the case of the Manchester Terrier (we told you it would be a stretch), it was the pint-sized version of the breed that helped the bigger size.

Going into the 1950s, the Standard Manchester Terrier wasn’t doing too well. It had progressively lost popularity, and therefore support, and by the middle of 1952, the Manchester Terrier Club of America had all but vanished. The breed was without representation, and without advocacy and support, a breed can (and has) fade into history.

It was the American Toy Manchester Terrier Club that saved the day. In 1958, the Toy Manchester Terrier Club proposed a new Standard that embraced the two varieties to take the place of the two specifications for the then two entirely separate breeds. The AKC approved, and in 1959, a single breed, the Manchester Terrier, was recognized as having two sizes. At the same time, the American Toy Manchester Terrier Club changed its name to the American Manchester Terrier Club and became parent club for both sizes.

This oldest identifiable Terrier breed dating back to the late 1570s was kept intact, and it was through the vision of Toy Manchester people.

Image:Manchester Terriers by ©Willeecole/Dreamstime stock photo