convoluted logic I donât care to recall, I arrived at the skewed but gratifying conclusion that since we only had a halfâJack Russell, a second Jack Russell would give us the whole, ideal dog. No, weâd never had two dogs before, I explained to my objecting-as-usual husband. But they were small. And two couldnât be any more trouble than one.
(Weâll let that lie there for a bit.)
Besides, if Blue couldnât find a soft spot in her peculiar little heart for humans, maybe something with fur could seduce her. And maybe, too, a little friend to play with and tussle with and chase balls with might distract her from the woodwork.
Which is how Billy the Jack came into our lives: a walking, eating, yawning example of the hair of the dog that bit you.
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Following the usual half-baked modus operandi with which youâll now be more or less familiar, I did a good bit of reading about the owning of two dogs. I was no longer borrowing dog books from the library, it will interestyou mildly to know. I had gone pure hard-core and was buying my dog books now. Some arrived in plain brown wrappers from England, because my addiction had become too pressing, too immoderate and too often occurring on weekends or after midnight, when the library was closed.
Thatâs where Iâd read in my now well-thumbed Raising Jack Russell Terriers that the key thing is, even if your female has been spayed (Blue had), itâs almost never recommended that you put two bitches together, basically because nothing is as vicious to a bitch as another bitch, as everyone who watches reality TV already knows.
Impatient as usual, I scouted out a litter that had a boy: nearer by this time, only in Connecticut. The pups in this litter were broken-coated Jacks, i.e., dogs with rough or curly coats. To my mind, these werenât as caressable as the smooth coats, but in their fuzzy-wuzzy way, they were cute. And Billy, with his curly white coat and brown-encircled eye, was a sweetie. From the get-go, he was this docile little ball of fur that was happy to eat and sleep and little else. For as long as he was with us, actually, Billy didnât do much but eat, sleep and grow rotund. Very rotund.
He was also a champion yawner.
Blue seemed okay with her new roommate, although I wouldnât say she welcomed Billy, or that she and Billy even liked each other, which made me sad. Because when it had first occurred to me to get a second dog, Iâd had fond imaginings of the two of them curled around each other in a (tartan, perhaps?) dog bed. You know, like in the puppy calendars? But without the little bows and hats? Mostly, however, they ignored each other: Blue spending days standing on the sofa back, idly chewing on a particularly pricey gimp while keeping one eye on the squirrels out the window; Billy lying hopefully under the kitchen table, waiting for the escaped grape or the errant chip of toast. At dinner he ate twice as much as Blue, though as he grew from puppyhood to adulthood, from pudgy to portly, Billy snuffled around our table less, being happy just to lie on his bed and yawn. Eventually, I came to see Billy as the canine equivalent of some elderly member of an Edwardian gentlemenâs club.
But he liked us, at least, for which we were pitifully grateful. Billy thought our laps were nice warm beds; beds that were a little too prone to sudden disappearances to suit him, maybe desire-able but all the same. Not laps of the gods, for sure. Not even laps of extraordinarily important buds/owners/pals. But useful and handy and his.
Which is not to say that either of our Jacks didnât love having his/her ears scratched or, at least once a day, come nosing around for one of my inimitable tushie rubs. It was those tushie rubs that started it all, in fact. For one night, as Millard and I and the dogs lolled together in front of the television, we got a lesson on the Animal in animals.
Billy was about eight
(Weâll let that lie there for a bit.)
Besides, if Blue couldnât find a soft spot in her peculiar little heart for humans, maybe something with fur could seduce her. And maybe, too, a little friend to play with and tussle with and chase balls with might distract her from the woodwork.
Which is how Billy the Jack came into our lives: a walking, eating, yawning example of the hair of the dog that bit you.
Â
Â
Following the usual half-baked modus operandi with which youâll now be more or less familiar, I did a good bit of reading about the owning of two dogs. I was no longer borrowing dog books from the library, it will interestyou mildly to know. I had gone pure hard-core and was buying my dog books now. Some arrived in plain brown wrappers from England, because my addiction had become too pressing, too immoderate and too often occurring on weekends or after midnight, when the library was closed.
Thatâs where Iâd read in my now well-thumbed Raising Jack Russell Terriers that the key thing is, even if your female has been spayed (Blue had), itâs almost never recommended that you put two bitches together, basically because nothing is as vicious to a bitch as another bitch, as everyone who watches reality TV already knows.
Impatient as usual, I scouted out a litter that had a boy: nearer by this time, only in Connecticut. The pups in this litter were broken-coated Jacks, i.e., dogs with rough or curly coats. To my mind, these werenât as caressable as the smooth coats, but in their fuzzy-wuzzy way, they were cute. And Billy, with his curly white coat and brown-encircled eye, was a sweetie. From the get-go, he was this docile little ball of fur that was happy to eat and sleep and little else. For as long as he was with us, actually, Billy didnât do much but eat, sleep and grow rotund. Very rotund.
He was also a champion yawner.
Blue seemed okay with her new roommate, although I wouldnât say she welcomed Billy, or that she and Billy even liked each other, which made me sad. Because when it had first occurred to me to get a second dog, Iâd had fond imaginings of the two of them curled around each other in a (tartan, perhaps?) dog bed. You know, like in the puppy calendars? But without the little bows and hats? Mostly, however, they ignored each other: Blue spending days standing on the sofa back, idly chewing on a particularly pricey gimp while keeping one eye on the squirrels out the window; Billy lying hopefully under the kitchen table, waiting for the escaped grape or the errant chip of toast. At dinner he ate twice as much as Blue, though as he grew from puppyhood to adulthood, from pudgy to portly, Billy snuffled around our table less, being happy just to lie on his bed and yawn. Eventually, I came to see Billy as the canine equivalent of some elderly member of an Edwardian gentlemenâs club.
But he liked us, at least, for which we were pitifully grateful. Billy thought our laps were nice warm beds; beds that were a little too prone to sudden disappearances to suit him, maybe desire-able but all the same. Not laps of the gods, for sure. Not even laps of extraordinarily important buds/owners/pals. But useful and handy and his.
Which is not to say that either of our Jacks didnât love having his/her ears scratched or, at least once a day, come nosing around for one of my inimitable tushie rubs. It was those tushie rubs that started it all, in fact. For one night, as Millard and I and the dogs lolled together in front of the television, we got a lesson on the Animal in animals.
Billy was about eight
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