The word feisty – 'energetic, belligerent, esp. chiefly dial: a small dog of uncertain ancestry.' The word 'feist' is described in Webster's Third New International Dictionary as from the obsolete word 'fysting', meaning 'breaking wind, in such expressions as fysting dog or fysting hound'.

Gray's Prairie Daisy – an example of a Gray-bred Mountain Feist Etymology The Treeing Feists include the Atomic Feist, Barger Feist, Boggs Creek Feist, Original Cajun Squirrel Dog, Charlie Feist, Fleming Creek Squirrel Dog, Hickory Grounds Feist, Horse Creek Feist, Hurley Comb's-bred Feist, Mountain Cur, Mullins Feist, Redwood Feist, Riverun Feist, Shaderidge, and Rat Terrier. Various named varieties within the feist type have been developed, including the Mountain Feists, which includes the Baldwin Feist, Buckley Feist, DenMark Feist, Galla Creek Feist, Kemmer Feist, Lost Creek Feist, Sport-bred Feist, and Thornburg Feist. Although they put up a furious chase, feists rarely catch squirrels they typically expect their owners to shoot them. Leashing these dogs in the presence of squirrels is advisable. During the chase, they wade through streams, leap over logs, and dash across roads to get to their prey.

When they have treed a squirrel, they chase the squirrel until it leaves their sight.

They locate squirrels using their eyes, ears, and nose, then tree them barking loudly and circling the tree, in the same manner that a coonhound trees raccoons. When hunting, feists, unlike hounds, are mostly silent on track until they tree a squirrel. Most feists have an extreme drive to chase rabbits, along with squirrels and other rodents. This contrasts with terriers or Dachshunds, earth dogs that go to ground to kill or drive out the prey, usually rodents, rabbits, foxes, or badgers. Individual dogs can hunt in more than one way, but in general, feists work above ground to chase small prey, especially squirrels. They are identified more by the way they hunt and their size than by their appearance. As feists are bred for hunting, not as show dogs, little to no consistency is seen in appearance (breed type), and they may be purebred, crossbred, or mixed-breed dogs. The tail can be natural, bobtail, or docked. The ears are set high on the head and are button, erect, or short hang. 4.1 Mountain Feist and Jack Russell Terriersįeists are small to medium-sized dogs 10 to 18 in (25 to 46 cm) tall, and weigh 15 to 30 lb (6.8 to 14 kg), short-coated dogs with long legs.

Feist dog breed