So much has been said about the Decker Giant Rat Terrier but what about the man behind the creation of them. A lot could be said for Milton Decker and the devotion involved in his efforts toward creating his ideal dog.
     Curiously enough, Milton did not name the "Decker Giant" as such, he raised Decker Rat Terriers. The Decker Giant was used as a descriptive name due to the large size of his Rats by many of the breeds fanciers. It is now known affectionately as the "Decker Giant".

     In a recent conversation with him, he spoke with conviction and gave us some interesting history. Milton was born with a Rat Terrier by his side named "Wragler". This little dog grew up with him to the age of 14 years. Imagine having a dog the same age as you going through your childhood and teenage years. His dog was everything to him and he learned to appreciate and love the Rat Terrier from an early age. His little dog died from poison at a long-lived age of 14. When he was about 18, his father bought him another Rat Terrier that was solid tan in color. Needless to say, this was the beginning of the Decker Rat Terrier whether he knew it at the time or not.  In fact, he named one of his dogs once he got into breeding after his first Rat Terrier Wragler.
     Later on in life he ran upon a dog called "Henry". He was out of a litter of four pups, two brothers and a sister. Henry's mom was a Fox Terrier and his dad was a Rat Terrier cross. Milton was quite enthralled with this Henry dog because he could virtually do everything. As Milton recalled, "Henry had great instincts", he did best hunting ducks". However, although Henry loved water he hated ducks, at first anyway. The first time Henry saw a duck he went over, sniffed the duck and went back to Milton with a look of disgust on his face as if to say, "you want me to retrieve that!". Yet one year later he was retrieving ducks from everywhere and couldn't be matched.

     Milton decided that he needed to recreate the Henry dogs disposition, instincts and abilities to share with the world but wanted a more refined look to the dog. Henry was superb in every way but his coat was a little rough and he had droopy ears.
     The search began for a mate for Henry. He liked his large size so he started looking for the largest Rats he could locate along with impeccable hunting ability and unshakable temperaments.  He acquired his first 5 breeding dogs from a Preacher man in Texas who apparently knew a good dog from a not so good dog. Seemed to Milton this was a hard thing to come by in those days. Along the way he ran across dogs that were great and some outlandish. He bought a dog from Kansas that acted as his mainstay and dogs from Arkansas added some more real good qualities. He also purchased more dogs from Texas. Washington, Mississippi and California. Each dog added something very beneficial to his breeding program. The trick was to keep bringing in good blood and remain very particular about what he used. Looking back he said that Henry's button ears cost him a very large sum of money to correct.

     As he went along in his breeding program he concentrated on about 14 traits at once with hunting ability, companionship and disposition first and foremost. It was all or nothing and everything was equally important in creating the ideal dog. Size, ear set, ability, temperament, color, he wanted it all and achieved it all.
       His dogs began producing the large size consistently and have produced dogs up to 52 pounds. By selective breeding and a broad knowledge of genetics he locked in the Black/Tan and Black Tri colors among many other characteristics. He recalls seeing blue/white/tan pups born but choose not to breed them. He reports that he never produced a chocolate color pup in the time he was breeding. During his arduous search for the right Rat Terriers, he happened upon what he stated as a  very beautiful yellow or black brindle dogs.  Although he would have liked to breed a brindle line, he never had the opportunity to do so.
     Milton made an interesting observation about the color of the dogs. His impression was that the Black/Tan color pups, out of the same litter with Black Tri pups, seemed to be a bit more fiesty, had some trouble getting along with each other and were somewhat more possessive of their owners.
     He mentioned that Towser, Wragler and Henry hunted with him a lot. They would stay very close to him because they were companion hunters. Looking for the dogs more than hunting was not on Milton's agenda. This aspect of his Rats was extremely important to him and strove to retain this quality within them when he bred. They did not have hound instincts and didn't hunt by scent. They would run a deer 200 yards and then come back to him.
     Milton Decker is a strong family man with strong convictions, a passionate person for doing things the right way and wanted to share his love for the Rat Terrier. His children are all grown but still best friends with each other and close to him. Each one of them picked out their favorite dog to keep when Milton retired from breeding. His parting words were, "I don't care if I go to hell when I die because I've already been to heaven".