“By law” (which is to say that according to its breed standard), ears on a Skye Terrier may be carried “prick or drop,” but over 100 years ago, a prick eared Skye Terrier meant something very different than what we picture today when we hear the term, and that’s a dog like the lovely one below:

Photo of Michelle Shiue’s “Dude” by The Winning Image

When the Cairn Terrier was first shown in Britain, it was as the Prick-eared Skye Terrier (also as the Shorthaired Skye Terrier or even “the original Skye Terrier”) up until 1910. One Mrs (Ida) Alastair Campbell, a Cairn Terrier fancier, however, had lobbied for separate classes for her breed at Kennel Club dog shows for some time. She entered her dogs at the Inverness Show in 1909 as “Prick-eared Skyes” (the name she preferred), but the dogs had to be listed on the Skye Terrier register at the KC, and Skye Terrier fanciers didn’t appreciate the confusion, let alone the fact that Cairn Terriers were still being accepted on the Skye Terrier Register.

When the next Crufts Dog Show offered two classes for “Cairn or Short-haired Skyes,” Mrs. Campbell entered four of her dogs in the Skye Terrier class where, not surprisingly, the judge noted that the dogs didn’t remotely match the breed standard, the point Mrs. Campbell had been trying to make all along: Her dogs were not Skye Terriers. Of the event, the eminent judge, Robert Leighton, wrote:

“Mrs. Alastair Campbell’s exhibits were shown in a class by themselves under the name of Short-haired Skye Terrier, but I question very much whether they should have been admitted at all among Skye Terriers.  But for their colour, which varies from light fawn to brindled tan, they must just as suitably have been classed with West Highland White Terriers or with Scottish Terriers.  I could and did only judge them as terriers . . . from Scotland.

“Apart from consideration of their proper place in the list of recognized breeds, they are admirable little earth-dogs, evidently game and well fitted for their work among the fox cairns of Argyleshire.  Unquestionably, the best of them was Doran Bhan, an alert and shapely little chap, who was followed in order by Roy Mohr, Cuilean Bhan, and Sporgan.” 

It would be a disservice to refer to what happened next as an “exchange of correspondences” for in reality, it was a spirited back-and-forth between Mrs. Campbell and the Kennel Club as only dog people can have, and you get a sense of flared tempers from reading the letters here.

In April, 1910, the Kennel Club decided (after having received a formal protest from the Skye Terrier Clubs) that these short haired dogs being exhibited as “Short-Haired (Prick-Eared) Skye Terriers” and registered as Skye Terriers “must in future be registered as Cairn Terriers.”  Cairn Terriers were recognized as their own distinct breed by the KC in 1912, but our sense is that it was a luke-warm victory for Mrs. Campbell who had regarded the name, “Cairn Terrier,” as only a casual and “kitchen table” breed name. Still, she went on to become the first Honorary Secretary of the Cairn Terrier Club, and the first dog Champion was her own” Gesto.”

Image of Mrs. Campbell with Gesto