Back in the day, when the blood sport of bull and bear baiting was common before it was outlawed in England by the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1835, ancestors of the Bulldog were the preferred dogs of choice to go up against a bear or bull. These were agile, straight standing dogs that bore little resemblance to today’s Bulldog, and, in fact, looked more like the breed we know presently as the American Staffordshire Terrier. This isn’t all that surprising when one learns that the former was used to create the latter.

To fill the void left by the banishment of baiting sports, a new blood sport emerged: Dog fights. Early dog fighters experimented with various terriers to bring agility and “gameness” into Bulldogs that already possessed courage and tenacity. As for which terrier was crossed with the bulldog, experts differ in opinion. The white English Terrier, the Fox Terrier, the Black-and-Tan Terrier – each has been mentioned as a probable candidate. In any event, it was the cross between the Bulldog and the terrier that gave us the Staffordshire Terrier.

In those days, it went by a few different names that included the Half and Half, and the Bull-and-Terrier Dog, and in America, it would be called the Pit Dog, the Pit Bull terrier, and later, the American Bull Terrier. Mercifully, dog fights were also banned (though it remains a shameful activity in some parts of the world, including a clandestine underground network in the United States), and people came to realize that ironically – and tragically – these were marvelous companion dogs when not subjected to cruelty.

Early Staffordshires became favored companions of coal miners in the north ‘Black Country’ of Staffordshire from where the dogs got their name, and in the mid to late 1900s, the dogs made their way to America. They quickly spread throughout the country, and in 1936, the AKC accepted them for registration in the AKC Stud Book as the Staffordshire Terrier, though author, John T. Marvin, maintains in his Book of All Terriers that the breed was recognized as the American Staffordshire Bull Terrier.  On its website, the Staffordshire Terrier Club of America writes that in 1972, the name was revised to the American Staffordshire Terrier because American breeders had developed a type heavier than the Staffordshire Bull Terrier of England,  and the name change was implemented to distinguish the two as separate breeds. Indeed, nearly one hundred years of development separated the two breeds to where even their general build differed from each other.

In 1936, the Staffie became the 19th terrier breed recognized by the AKC, and Wheeler’s Black Dinah – A86066 – was the first of the breed to be accorded a stud book number. The following year, Maher’s Captain D became the first AKC Staffordshire champion.

Image: American Staffordshire Terrier © Isselee | Dreamstime