Feist

[IRescue452]

"Feist" is a group of breeds such as "coonhound" can desribe the redbone, black and tan, English, and so on. The feist group includes the Kemmer Feist, the Mountain Feist, Bench-legged feist, pencil-tail feist and more. They are working dogs used to hunt squirrels mostly. If you want more info you can try looking them up individually by breed. Most akc breeders would concider them curs, but they are a traditional dog bred currently for working, much like how the different strands of coonhound started. They are yet to be touched by snooty standards and breeding for a conformation. One of the reasons I'm not opposed to crossbreeding on purpose is because there are breeds that are there for working and the strains are being kept "pure" by having country folk breed the dogs without the akc standards interceding. The coonhoud used to be a good hunting dog because the neighbor down the road would breed his prize red bitch to his neighbor's good hunting dog. There were no standards of breeding only a certain height of hound to another of the same carriage and type. The feist is going to be hard to look up because there are no dictionary outlines of the breed. Thats the way it should be I think.

[Allecto]

I had a grandfather who grew up in the south states mostly, and he swore by mountain feists. He'd talk a lot about how great they were... unfortunately, though, after moving to Cali the only feists he owned were actually rat terriers (I am not sure if he actually got them cross-registered or not). A nearby shelter recently had a bunch of dogs who's dominant breed they listed as mt. feist as well, but it turned out they had just taken a wild guess and had no real reason to think they were that breed... so I don't feel like I've ever really had a chance to get to know one.