ICONS OF THE PAST
MASTER BREEDERS WHOSE LEGACIES LIVE ON
The Terrier Group
BY DAN SAYERS
‘Robin’ stands
front and center
in this portrait
of acclaimed
photographer
and Norwich
Terrier breeder
Constance Stuart
Larrabee.
“V
ariety is the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavour,” wrote the 18th century English poet William
Cowper. Although this familiar quote preceded the
advent of dog shows by a century, its message was no doubt
embraced by Victorians who took great delight in classifying
the natural world — domesticated animals included. For dog
fanciers, the sorting of regional types into recognized breeds
reached its highest standard of perfection, perhaps, in the Terrier Group. From hardscrabble farm dogs, today’s distinctive
collection of short- and long-legged tyrants developed, owing
to a succession of very clever English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
— and American — breeders. This month, Dogs in Review
honors four individuals whose recipe for success in purebred
dogs was concentrated in a single variety of “earth dog.”
Constance Stuart Larrabee – King’s
Prevention Norwich Terriers
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companionship to their vast acquaintanceship at their farm,”
discloses Read. Among the couple’s close local friends were
Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Massey, who imported the first unregistered Jones/Norwich Terrier to the area from Lady Maureen
Helen Stanley, daughter of Charles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest-Stewart, seventh Marquess of Londonderry.
As Read points out, “It did not take long for Constance
Larrabee to become intrigued with the Norwich breed, for
its diversity and scope held a new challenge for this gifted
photographer.” In time, the photographer’s darkroom also became a “dogroom,” where Mrs. Larrabee produced both Norwich Terriers and a breed newsletter. “By now champion after
prick-ear champion was being spawned at King’s Prevention,
which provided foundation stock for breeders from coast to
coast and kept nursery pens at home fully occupied,” writes
Read. In 1975, Mrs. Larrabee made a trip to England, where
she visited with Norwich breeder Joy Taylor and returned
home with a “drop-ear” named Nanfan Corricle. The import
provided Mrs. Larrabee with a foundation for the breed that
would eventually become known as the Norfolk Terrier. As
Read explains, “James E. and Anne Rogers Clark received
‘Ahoy’ by Ch. Wendover Torrent from Corricle’s first litter…
Corricle’s other daughter, King’s Prevention Belinda, by Eng.
Ch. Ickworth Peter’s Pence, before ‘masquerading’ as a Norwich, produced King’s Prevention Jolly Roger, the premier
black-and-tan stud for the Clarks’ Surrey Kennels.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 108
COURTESY THE NORFOLK TERRIER, JOAN R. READ.
On September 20, 1998, an exhibit titled, “South Africa 19361949: Photographs by Constance Stuart Larrabee” opened at
the Smithsonian’s African Art Museum in Washington, D.C.
Featured were 79 black-and-white images of vanishing cultures taken by a free-spirited 21-year-old. “I was young and
enthusiastic,” Mrs. Larrabee is quoted as saying in the show’s
program. “It was the love for photography, the people and the
land, with no commercial or scientific purpose in mind. It was
for the sheer delight of it.” Thankfully, fate brought the lady
and her lens to Maryland and Virginia hunt country, where she
recorded the establishment of the Norwich Terrier among the
region’s horse and hound fraternity.
In 1949, Constance Stuart wed Colonel Sterling Larrabee, a
former US military attaché to South Africa. The couple settled
on a farm in Chestertown, Md., where they were joined by
Mr. Larrabee’s pack of Beagles and a pair of imported Jones
Terriers. As Joan Redmond Read writes in The Norfolk Terrier,
“These game little bolters were immediately embraced by the
Warrenton sporting set, and in 1926 Colonel Larrabee was able
to acquire a Jones bitch for himself.” Known as ‘Mink Mouth,’
the foundation of King’s Prevention Kennel and her descendants were expected to work, ridding the barn of sundry pests.
“Occasionally a terrier was packed into the leather mailbag and
carried by a mounted groom to bolt hunted fox,” notes Read.
Mr. Larrabee was Master of the Old Dominion Hounds
and well-respected as both a competitor and a judge. “The
ever-courtly Colonel was an opinionated charmer, who, with
the irrepressible and creative Constance, offered stimulating