Mountain Feist and puppy. Courtesy of Becky Moran Photography.
A Mountain Feist is a type of small hunting dog. Like the many others varieties of feists, it is not a specific breed. The ancestral homeland of the Mountain Feist is the Southern Appalachian and Ozark Mountains. These dogs played a vital role in the lives of early pioneers like their larger relatives, the treeing hound. Abraham Lincoln included the fiest in his poem, “The Bear Hunt” and George Washington mentioned them in his diary. The mountain feist is often mistaken for a Jack Russell terrier but has a softer, smoother coat and is quieter and calmer. They excel in hunting squirrels, rabbits, raccoons and vermin. Mountain families have taken pride in their feist dogs for generations.
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