Five hundred Boston Terriers in one place, can you imagine it? A while back, the Boston Terrier Club show held at the Mechanics Building in Boston enjoyed that many entries, the largest of any one breed of dogs ever shown to date. Mind you, it was 1907, but what a sight it must have been. Women were still wearing trailing skirts, gloves, and broad-brimmed hats as they showed off the popular and highly structured silhouette of the Gibson Girl, while the gents had on their morning dress coats, starched shirt-fronts with high collars, and some in homburg hats.
The breed had already made a splash two years before at Westminster where it was hugely popular among spectators, though the Boston Globe newspaper snidely wrote at the time, “There has been just a bit of prejudice against the Bostons hereabouts. It was never on account of the dog, but because of the fact that a breed peculiar to the United States should have originated anywhere east of this city.’’
It was prescient jealousy.
The quintessentially American breed with a start in the fighting pits became reinvented as a companion dog, and in a few short years, AKC registrations for the breed would see 90,000 Bostons registered between 1921 and 1934. In 1935, the AKC had it listed as the most popular breed in the country, and it would remain in the Top Three for the next ten years.
It became the darling breed of celebrities: Comedian Joan Rivers and satirist, Dorothy Parker had one. So did actors Vincent Price, Richard Kiley, and Earl Holliman, and fashion icon, Yves St. Laurent. Helen Keller owned one, as did President Warren G. Harding who named his dog,”Hub.”
Sandwiched in those years was the naming of a Boston Terrier in 1922 as the official mascot of Boston University. “Rhett” has been the mascot of the university for longer than the breed has been the official state dog of Massachusetts. You can see the different “Rhetts” over the years here.
We conclude, however, with some sad news.
Boston University is mourning the death of its latest Rhett, a 12-year-old Boston Terrier who passed away a few days ago as a result of a heart condition. Last year, an electrocardiogram and a picture of his heart revealed that Rhett’s heart valves were failing. The Daily Free Press reported that Rhett died peacefully in the arms of a person who had loved him since he was a puppy.
RIP, Rhett.
Image: Boston Terrier/Dreamstime Photo