Who bred the
Scottish Terrier?

The full narration of the video.

The Scottish terriers that lived in the White House — who actually created them? A little black dog, with short legs, a long beard, and two pointed little ears. President Roosevelt's family had two, and President George W. Bush had two more. All of them moved into the White House.

People online often call it the breed with the most White House stays. That ranking is hard to pin down. But it is certainly a familiar face there. Roosevelt's dog was called Fala. At the Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, his bronze statue sits right beside the president. No other presidential pet has been honored like that.

By 1936, the Scottie was America's third most popular breed. To find who made it, we have to walk backward in time. Go back more than fifty years, to 1880. Two dog lovers wrote something down on paper.

It said what this dog should look like: how long the head, how short the legs, how hard the coat, and what color. That paper was like a recipe for a dish. Without a recipe, every family cooks braised pork its own way, with different ingredients. Every plate comes out different.

Scotland's little hunting dogs were the same: some were called Aberdeen terriers, some Highland terriers, and they all looked different. With a recipe, breeders could choose: they paired the males and females that fit it best, generation after generation. The next year, the first Scottish terrier club was founded — in England. Scotland's own club came seven years later.

But where did the ingredients come from? Go back further, to the farms of the Scottish Highlands. Farmers didn't keep these dogs for looks. They kept them for work: catching rats, diving into burrows, and driving out foxes and badgers. Short legs meant it didn't get stuck. A sturdy body meant it could hold its ground underground.

Its coat was rough and wiry, keeping out Highland wind and rain, and protecting it in a fight. So the Scottish terrier has no single inventor. Farmers shaped it for work; dog lovers wrote the recipe and selected it over generations. Then presidents carried it into the White House, and the whole world knew it.

The real name for that recipe is a breed standard. Every dog breed has one today, and show judges check dogs against it line by line. One more odd thing: the very first recipe didn't include black at all. It listed grey, grizzle and brindle. Black only became fashionable in the twentieth century.

Some say light-colored dogs looked too much like foxes in the field, so hunters couldn't tell them apart. Darker dogs slowly won out. Do you know anyone with a Scottie? Where does it love to dig in?