Love 'em, though I've only met a few. Lively and with a very strong prey instinct (like most terriers), the ones I've seen have always been very social with other dogs - particularly larger dogs.

Not sure I'd like one for myself, as I think the grooming would be a bit much.

I never thought about the name, though I knew what a 'cairn' was. At first I thought maybe it referred to the dogs' appearance, but the actual definition makes much more sense. Terriers are relentless when they think they're onto something.


According to Merriam Webster, the etymology for 'terrier' is
"Middle English terryer, terrer, from Anglo-French (chen) terrer, literally, earth dog, from terre earth, from Latin terra"

One might think that 'terror' would be more apt, but "Earth Dog" makes a lot of sense. The smaller terriers are low to the ground, all terriers love to dig and chase things to ground.