Mountain Feist

The Mountain Feist is a small American squirrel dog from the southern uplands, and the type Abraham Lincoln wrote a poem about.

History

Feists are small hunting dogs brought to the American South by British settlers and bred for treeing squirrel — the word appears in George Washington's diaries and in Lincoln's verse "The Bear Hunt". The Mountain Feist is the Appalachian and Ozark version, kept by hunting families rather than registries for most of its history.

Temperament

The breed is known for being alert, tireless and affectionate with its family, intensely focused on anything in a tree and generally quiet until it finds one.

Care and training

It needs substantial exercise and a real outlet for the hunting drive. The short coat is easy. Training is straightforward; containment matters because it hunts.

Health

Generally very robust from working selection; nothing is widely documented as breed-specific. These are patterns for the breed rather than a forecast for one dog; the measured facts are in the panel.