The first outing for Welsh Terriers at a dog show would have been the classes at the Lleyn and Eifionydd Agricultural Society event in Pwllheli, North Wales in 1884. Records suggest a decent entry at that show, but despite this, dogs entered at the Bangor Dog, Poultry, Pigeon, Cage Bird and Horticultural show that same year were entered not as Welsh Terriers, but as Rough or Wire-haired Terriers. This was still the case a year later when “Old English Wire-Haired Black and Tan Terrier” was the name used by many, including English fanciers who tried to form a club under this name. Pressure by breeders of the “Black and Tan” resulted in the breed’s classification as the Old English Wire-haired Black and Tan Terrier, but the following year, Welsh supporters of the “Welsh Terrier” (same breed, mind you) who had formed a club in 1886 prevailed upon the English Kennel Club to drop the English version, “Black and Tan,” from classification. The Kennel Club specifically recognized the breed for registration as the Welsh Terrier in 1887, and it was around this time that the breed began to be exported to the United States, including one shown at Westminster by Prescott Lawrence in 1888. Until it was sorted out, the same breed could be dual registered in England with the Kennel Club as a ‘Welsh Terrier’ as well as an ‘Old English hard-haired black and Tan Terrier.’

It wasn’t the only name by which the breed was known: For a time, it was referred to as the Carnarvonshire Terrier for the place in which it was originally bred: Caernarvonshire, Wales  That said, one nickname we came across for the breed is perhaps our favorite of all its names: The “Loveable Rogue.”

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