Description of a Mountain Feist.

A mountain feist is a type of dog. Like the lurcher, it is not a specific breed but a "Type".

The Mountain Feist was created in the southern portion of North America. It is a good hunting dog, and a good companion dog. This is not a breed, but a type. It is can be a mix between a terrier and a hound, and is usually mistaken for a rat terrier or a jack russell terrier. A long dog (not a widely used expression) is a cross between two sight hounds. Mainly used as a squirrel dog, they are also good in hunting raccoons and tracking larger game.

The ancestral homeland of the Mountain Feist is the Southern Appalachian and Ozark Mountains. The Mountain Feist is also known interchangeably by many as Treeing Feist. Many Feist dogs are the product of generations of selective breeding while some are first generation crosses of other widely known breeds.

The Mountain (Treeing) Feist may not be widely known but it is not a new breed. Written accounts of the dogs go back centuries to a poem by Abraham Lincoln (The Bear Hunt) and George Washington's diary. A feist dog is also featured in William Faulkner's "Go Down Moses".

Feist dogs are believed to be the progenitor of what we now call the Rat Terrier. Due to the fact that the word "feist" refers to a general type of dog just as "hound" and "terrier" refer to a group of breeds, Rat Terriers are often called "feist". The terriers brought to America in the 1890's from England were crossed with Feist dogs already here in addition to some of the Toy breeds (Toy Fox Terrier, Manchester Terrier and Chihuahua) to develop the Rat Terrier we know today. The Rat Terrier is a specific breed within the "feist" umbrella.

There has been considerable crossing of Feist dogs due to the fact that they are bred primarily for performance as hunting dogs.

It is uncertain how long Feist dogs have been in America but it is generally accepted that they played a vital role in the lives of early pioneers just like their larger relatives, the Curs.