08/16/2026
Today’s working terrier is Effin.
Today should have been a moment to celebrate the most unlikely of legends, retiring with grace and dignity.
On paper, Effin is the epitome of a working terrier: 14 inches tall, 14 pounds of flexibility and strength, with a 14.5-inch chest. He has an extraordinarily hard, dense flat coat and the seemingly impossible ability to bend himself in half six ways to Sunday. In sports, he was fast and athletic, clearing 22 feet in dock jumping and racing at speeds up to 26 MPH.
But Effin's heart has always belonged to the field.
He has hunted throughout the United States and Canada, small enough for tight groundhog settes and tough enough to survive an unexpected encounter with a badger. He is intelligent, steady, extraordinarily game and completely unassuming about all of it.
Effin is also a dog who only got better with age.
In 2023, he was awarded an Award of Merit at the Parson Russell Terrier Association of America National Specialty from the Working Dog class under Judge Jan Paulk, earning an invitation to Crufts. In March 2024, he traveled with me to England and competed as a Veteran at Crufts, earning a placement among dogs that included previous Crufts Best of Breed and World Dog Show winners.
Effin is NOT your average mongrel.
He was once NOT affectionately designated a "whippet squirrel" for his correct working proportions and natural build, but what truly defines him cannot be measured with a wicket or a tape.
Effin has more heart and grit than perhaps any dog I have ever shared my life with. And somehow, that incredibly hard-working terrier is also a lovely, gentle friend who is equally content walking beside me through the crowded streets of London or waiting underground in Tennessee for me to dig him out of the earth.
In the summer of 2024, I very nearly lost him. Smash unexpectedly entered on a badger. It bolted, and without hesitation, Effin did his job. For the first and only time in his long hunting career, everything went terribly wrong.
After a hard fight, Effin was knocked into a fast-moving river while I was desperately trying to reach Smash, who was underground and bottlenecked in dirt and sand. I hope never again to experience what it feels like to decide which dog you have to save first. One dog was at risk of suffocating underground. The other was fighting quarry we had successfully avoided direct contact with for nearly a decade. I chose Smash. I got her out.
And then I couldn't find Effin.
My locator couldn't pick up his collar. I searched for hours, and eventually, when it felt like there was nowhere left to look, I heard him. A mile and a half downstream from where we had encountered the badger, Effin was stranded on a tiny patch of sand beneath a sheer cliff.
I was alone. He was visibly injured and exhausted, and I knew I might have only one chance to get him before I would have to leave him there and go for help. Effin will always jump into my arms, but that day I didn't know if he had one more jump left in him. I hooked my boots into sagebrush, leaned as far over the cliff as I could and held open a slip lead. If he missed, or if I missed him, he would be back in the river.
I asked him to get up.
Effin launched.
I caught one wrist in the slip lead, flung him over my head and then slithered my way back up to safety. He was cold and could barely move, but he was alive.
We were more than an hour from the nearest veterinary hospital. Effin had cracked ribs, compressed vertebrae in his neck, lacerations and abrasions—some from the badger and others from being battered through a fast-moving river. He spent the next week in and out of veterinary hospitals while we were on the road, far from home.
His injuries healed, but Effin never completely did.
His health and stamina have never returned to what they were before that day. His heart still tells him to go. His body increasingly tells him that he cannot. He has aged remarkably quickly, and although he still enjoys a wonderful quality of life, the long-term effects of that day are making themselves known with increasing frequency.
And that is why today mattered so much to me.
There won't be another National for Effin.
There won't be another opportunity to walk into the Working Dog class with the little dog who earned an Award of Merit from that very class, went on to Crufts, hunted across two countries and spent a lifetime proving exactly what a Parson Russell Terrier is supposed to be.
There are no parades, social media posts or ringside stories that could adequately honor everything Effin has accomplished. There is no ribbon that could express my gratitude for the years of incredible work he has given me, for the accomplished—if occasionally semi-feral—generations of working terriers he has produced, or for everything this quiet and unassuming little dog has taught me.
Maybe that is fitting. Because Effin never needed any of those things. He needed the earth beneath his feet, quarry in front of him and the opportunity to do the work he was born to do.
I wanted the chance to honor him. Instead, I will simply say this:
There are dogs who earn titles. There are dogs who win ribbons. There are dogs whose names fill pedigrees and record books.
And then, if you are extraordinarily lucky, there are dogs who become part of the story of your life.
Effin is one of those dogs.
Fourteen inches. Fourteen pounds. More heart and grit than I could ever possibly measure.
He is, and always will be, the embodiment of a true working terrier.
