Family-friendly: | 4/5 |
Exercise needs: | 4/5 |
Easy to train: | 2/5 |
Tolerates being alone: | 3/5 |
Likes other pets: | 3/5 |
Energy level: | 4/5 |
Grooming needs: | 3/5 |
Shedding: | 3/5 |
- Dog suitable for non-experienced owners
- Extra training required
- Generally healthy breed
- Enjoys active walks
- Enjoys one to two hours of walking a day
- Small dog
- Minimum drool
- Requires grooming once a week
- Chatty and vocal dog
- Barks and alerts to visitors/anything unusual
- Could have issues with unknown dogs but gets along with known dogs
- May need additional training to live with other pets
- May need additional supervision to live with children
- Needs a small garden
- Can happily live in the city
- Can be left occasionally with training
The Manchester Terrier breed can suffer from:
- Patellar luxation
- Von Willebrand's disease¹ which is where a dog produces insufficient or faulty clotting factors which can result in uncontrolled bleeding.
- Legg-Perthes disease
- Juvenile dilated cardiomyopathy¹ which is a condition that develops in young dogs where the heart muscle becomes progressively weak and cannot beat properly.
Priority Kennel Club health schemes and testing:
- DNA test for von Willebrand's disease type 1 which tests whether or not a dog has the potential to be affected by this condition.
¹H. L. Legge, 'Histological characterization of dilated cardiomyopathy in the juvenile toy Manchester terrier', 2013, Veterinary Pathology
Personality
Whilst elegant and refined, the Manchester Terrier was, and remains, a tenacious, larger than life character, all that a terrier should be.
The Manchester Terrier is bright, intelligent, alert, loyal and affectionate to their family and keen to be involved in whatever activity is going on, yet small enough to be economical to keep and naturally neat and clean. They are typical terriers in that they are active and on the go all the time, often enjoy digging and may not be safe with unknown cats or small furry animals.
Did You Know?
- The Manchester Terrier is often said to resemble the Dobermann in miniature, however the truth is, it is the other way round. The Dobermanns creator, Herr Louis Dobermann, used Manchester Terriers to create his breed.
- The Victorian nickname ‘The Gentlemans Terrier’ may have been a little bit tongue in cheek! Though the Manchester Terrier was a smarter and more elegant terrier than most at the time, they were still a fairly disreputable ratting, rabbiting, sporting breed - all activities favoured by the somewhat less than ‘gentlemanly’ fellows of the era.
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