About Us

When we started breeding small Jack Russells, our goal was to improve their reputation, because throughout the 1980s/1990s in northern Virginia, most Jacks were purely working dogs with strong alpha personalities and a reputation for stubbornness and aggressiveness toward other dogs, cats, and some people. Some demonstrated the irritating habits of incessant barking and jumping. We wanted to produce healthy, jolly little dogs that could be easily socialized and that would respect and love their owners AND their owners’ friends and family. We wanted trainable terriers. All terriers, not just Jack Russells, can be a bit feisty and competitive at times---that is part of what makes them terriers---but we also wanted good-natured, playful, charming, and intelligent little dogs that could be become part of a family. Though much of this “good” behavior comes from proper socialization as puppies and young dogs, it is also in the breeding. Bloodlines can play a role in the tendency for a dog to be aggressive toward other animals (and children). We tried to keep this in mind when we started breeding. We were not breeding for show, because Jack Russells were not yet a recognized breed in the American Kennel Club.

Conformation was taken into consideration, however, especially in terms of a desire to avoid dwarfism characteristics, such as chondrodysplasia, resulting in excessively curved limbs. We also wanted skull size and chest width to be in proportion with the dog’s size---in other words, we didn’t want our “shorty Jacks” to simply be “big-bodied" dogs with cut-off limbs. We followed a breed description given by the English Jack Russell Terrier Club Alliance (EJRTCA) and registered our pedigrees with this club as well. As time went on, terriers registered with this club were accepted into the Foundation Stock Service of the American Kennel Club for the ‘new’ breed to be called Russell Terriers.

We became one of the early exhibitors of the Russell Terrier in the show ring, and we can claim some notable achievements in the dog show world, but most people who find this web site are looking for a pet and life-long companion. That remains an important goal for us in breeding these wonderful little dogs.

AKC Judge, Permit for Russell Terriers

President, Blue Ridge Russell Terrier Club

Content Editor, Worldwide Magazine for the Jack Russell Terrier

Candace Lundin, DVM, MS

Click photo to purchase

DBF Russell Terriers is proud to be the lifetime sponsor of the silver bowl for Russell Terriers offered once every 5 years to the Best of Breed at the Morris & Essex Kennel Club Dog Show

Our Story

Candace always wanted to be a veterinarian

Candace Lundin and Frank Zurieck at an International Polo Match in Middleburg, Virginia

Candace Lundin performing surgery on a horse at the Marian duPont Scott Equine Medical Center

Frank Zureick bred and showed English Springer Spaniels

Candace Lundin with Shetland pony and terrier mix

Frank Zureick bred the Graded Stakes winning mare Urbane

Frank showing a yearling at the Upperville horse show.

Candace

Dogs and horses were Candace's passion from the earliest she can remember. She had a Shetland pinto pony and a small terrier cross. She decided early on that she would become a veterinarian. She was born in a college town with a veterinary school (Kansas State University), and so her educational path was planned out long before she entered high school.

After graduating with a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree she stayed on to become the veterinary hospital’s first-ever equine intern. She continued another year to obtain a Master of Science Degree in anatomy and physiology. Candace then left Kansas and headed to Virginia to spend 2 years specializing in equine surgery at the Marion DuPont Scott Equine Medical Center.

Over the next 8 years, Candace moved from Baltimore (where she was in a private equine practice) to the suburbs of Chicago where she was Associate medical editor at the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA, the national membership organization for veterinarians) to New York City (where she managed global scientific communication plans for Pfizer’s Animal Health Division).

While at the AVMA, Candace managed to get Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams (VMATs) formed as part of The Federal Response Plan activated as part of the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) during times of disaster declarations. This was the first time that companion animal care would be included under FEMA.

Candace’s career path continued to move further into pharmaceutical research and medical publishing, first in veterinary medicine and then on the human side of medicine for the next 10 years. She “commuted” back to the horse country of Virginia weekly while also working with her husband Frank Zureick in a Thoroughbred breeding and training business.

She bought her first 'purebred' Jack Russell Terrier in 2000 after trying for a year to find a suitable pup in a shelter. She needed a pup to grow up on the farm, learning to be off leash while being respectful around horses and cats. This was a smooth coat shorty Jack. She registered her with the English Jack Russell Terrier Club Alliance since JRTs were not in the American Kennel Club yet.

Candace serving as groom for a win at the Saratoga Races

Frank

Frank’s father was Publicity Director for the Cincinnati Reds professional baseball club and so Frank’s baby pictures were of him being held by the likes of famous ballplayers such as Frank Robinson and Stan Musial. Still, Frank was not impressed with baseball---it was horseback riding lessons that he begged for. Frank progressed from showing Quarter Horses, Hunter-Jumpers, and Arabians to working as a riding instructor. His heart, however, was always in Thoroughbred racing. He studied pedigrees and breeding records and honed his horsemanship skills. In 1978, the late Sally Sexton, American Horse Shows Association Hall of Fame horsewoman, gave a weekend riding clinic at the stable where Frank taught. Before she departed, she offered Frank a job. So, he packed up and moved to Virginia where he broke yearlings and did the early schooling of show hunter prospects. He also got involved in fox hunting and had a brief stint as a jockey; he rode his own horse in a point-to-point race, won the race, and then promptly retired undefeated!

In the early 1980s, Frank began to show and breed English Springer Spaniels (ESS) under the Northminster Kennel prefix. He took great pleasure in the few times he beat George Alston in the Breed ring. Mr. Alston offered Frank a job as an Assistant Handler, but the dogs were just a hobby for Frank at that time. He was busy with Thoroughbreds. He bred the 1987 ESS Stud of the year, Northminster’s Czar of Croyden before temporarily retiring from dog shows in 1990.

In 1986, he started breaking yearlings for Centennial Farm in Middleburg, Virginia. He was there for 10 years and had the opportunity to break Colonial Affair (Belmont Stakes winner ridden by Julie Krone) and Go For Gin (Kentucky Derby winner), and Rubino (Eclipse Award Sprint winner) among many others. During this time, he also sought about finding well bred, but inexpensive broodmares. From his first mare purchased at auction for $7,000, he bred a Group III winner (Stone Gold). He then grabbed on to a tall, rangy, crooked, and unattractive filly by Pleasant Colony who was being culled from a nice Virginia breeding farm. He got her for $1,500. She eventually became his first graded-stakes producing broodmare (producing G1 millionairess, Urbane). Frank went on to be breeder of G2 winner, Major Success, from his second mare purchased at auction (for $25,000). He started his own breaking/training business in 1998 at the Middleburg Training Center, while continuing to pursue breeding top performers at Dog Branch Farm, a farm developed by Frank and Candace.

Frank entered the dog show ring again about 20 years after his English Springer Spaniel days to show Russell Terriers with Candace in the Miscellaneous Group when the breed was in the Foundation Stock Service program of AKC. He learned to groom by trial and error as well as getting help and instruction from various professional terrier handlers along the way. The ability to free stack a terrier and see what it needed came naturally after his years of prepping and showing yearling Thoroughbreds on the line.