Rashon

The Rashon is a hybrid breed comprised of a mix between a purebred Rat Terrier and a purebred Bichon Frise. The athletic little Rat Terrier is an American breed who were excellent ratters and most farms had one. Their ancestry includes other terrier breeds like the Old English White Terrier, the Bull Terrier, the Manchester Terrier, and the Fox Terrier. They were also bred with Italian Greyhounds, Whippets and Beagles which made them faster hunters. Some of these dogs are born with incredibly short tails while others have a complete tail. It is said that the Rat Terrier was given its name by President Theodore Roosevelt whose own dog eradicated the White House rat problem. By the mid-1950s numbers of Rat Terriers started declining when farmers replaced them with poison to control rodent populations. The breed only re-emerged in the 1970s with slightly larger dogs who were used for hunting wild pig, deer, and bear. They were officially recognized by the American Kennel Club in 2013. The Bichon Frise is thought to have descended from the Barbet, a woolly water dog, and that their name came from “barbichon”, the diminutive of “barbet”. They are related to the Bolognese, the Coton de Tulear, the Havanese, and the Maltese, all of which originated in the Mediterranean. The Bichon breed is originally Spanish and Spanish sailors brought the breed to Tenerife, according to some historians. In the 14th century, Italian sailors brought them back to Europe and then when the French invaded Italy in the 1500s, they brought many Bichon Frises back to France. They were extremely popular with royals and England's King Henry III was said to carry his dogs in a special basket round his neck. The dogs were later used as circus performers. They appeared in the United States in 1956 and the breed was recognized by the American Kennel Club in 1972.