We always thought the little lummox was part Jack Russell....

.... as well as Corgi. We were definitely right about the Corgi, but now I am not so sure about the Jack Russell.

Down here in North Carolina we have been breeding a peculiar dog, just now being recognized by the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, known as the Plott Hound. It has been named the state dog of North Carolina. It's one homely high strung beast. Well, if that's what Tar Heels want. Anyway, you can read all about it in Slate. com.

But here is the part that interests me and got me thinking about our little dogs antecedants.

Outdoorsmen from as far away as Africa and Japan hold the Plott in near-mystical esteem as perhaps the world's toughest dog. Bred to track, run down, tree, and, if necessary, grapple with a baying 500-pound bear eight times its size, it is often overmatched but rarely chastened by that fact. Inspect the coat of one that has worked in the woods for a year or more, and you will likely find slash marks from a bear's claws or a hog's tusks. Plotts routinely will stay on game, alone or in packs, for days at a time. Willing to sacrifice themselves before they'll run from a showdown, they are the ninja warriors of dogdom.

Sounds like our boy. Especially that ninja warrior part.

Not the mention the dumb enough to attack 500 pound bears eight times its size part.