It may be that the Scottish Terrier has been around since B.C turned to A.D Some people say that when Pliny the Elder wrote of "small dogs that would follow they quarry to ground" in his 55 B.C. records regarding the Roman invasion of Britain, he was documenting the breed. Romans noted the dogs and called them "terrari," which was Latin for "workers of the earth." The phrase had its root word in "terra," which meant "earth."
It took several centuries before the Scottish terrier history was again made. In his 1436 book, A History of Scotland, Don Leslie wrote about a little dog that could be described as a Scottish Terrier. During the 1500s, the brazen little hunters were immortalized in art and literature. Although they had become recognized as companion animals by then, they remained appreciated by farmers for their vermin extermination and by hunters for their ferocity even when they "went to ground." In the 19th century, two distinct breeds had emerged. One of them, a rough-haired dog, formally became the Scottish Terrier. (The other was a smooth-haired breed that is now known as the English Terrier.)
It was in 1860 when the Scottish terrier first appeared in a dog show. This first appearance seemed to have sparked a debate over the true breed description, and it took nearly two more decades before a standard was approved in 1877. When Capt. Gordon Murray published what he proclaimed was the standard, it was not long afterward, in 1880, that it was basically accepted. By 1882, Scottish Terrier breed clubs were being founded.
The breed was exported to the United States in 1883. Two dogs, Tam Glen and Bonnie Bell, were the first to arrive. By 1900, the first club devoted to the dogs was established. It took another quarter-century, in 1925, before a standard was accepted.
