Skippy

Skippy
A slightly modified Skippy

Friday, October 29, 2010

Mischief Unmanaged

Probably one of the most frustrating things Jack Russell owners have to deal with, and I am just speaking to my own experience, is their dog’s ingrained aptitude for mischief. Many owners have Jacks that destroy; pillows are ripped apart, sandals, slippers and shoes are enthusiastically eaten. Thankfully, Skippy’s tastes have, up until now, only been limited to food or things that were food at one time. But it seems that no matter how much we discipline, deter, or deprive our Jack Russells of the opportunity for mischief, they inevitably give in to their compulsions and manage to cause trouble of all sorts.

When we first got Skippy we learned quickly that any food left out was vulnerable. I set two muffins on the kitchen table, one at my place and another at my wife’s.  I left for a moment to go tell her the coffee was ready and when I came back, the muffin that I had put at my place was gone; no traces of crumbs; no evidence of foul play; no Skippy; no muffin. At the best of times, I am very absent-minded and so I tend to distrust myself when things go missing. I assumed that I had just not put a muffin out for me yet. It wasn’t until after the coffee that I noticed a few crumbs on the kitchen floor leading to one of the bedrooms, where I found our guilty-looking Jack Russell.

Not long after this incident I realized that it didn’t necessarily have to be food on the table to tempt Skippy. I had made a rub comprised of a mixture of spices that prominently featured cayenne pepper. I left it out on the table to be used later. That this would soon be eaten by my newly acquired Jack Russell, had not even entered my brain. Plenty of water and two days of digestion issues later and Skippy finally recovered. But what fascinated me was that, despite the intense heat which increases exponentially with every taste, she continued to eat the whole dish. So we learn yet another lesson. That leaves us with the compost bin, which we now have to make sure is snapped shut because Skippy seems to have a real hankering for old coffee grounds and rotten food scraps.

Sometimes we let out guard down when our dogs go on good behaviour streaks. Just the other week my wife heard some rustling from the study and remembered that she might have left out an open box of cookies. When she entered the room, there was Skippy with a narrow box of Swedish cookies shoved over her muzzle, bobbing her head back trying to use gravity to help her reach the last two cookies now stuck at the bottom of the box. She turned to face my wife; her eyes full of guilt; her cookie-box face hung low, full of shame.  Quite a site to behold.

Despite our best efforts, we will undoubtedly always give our Jack Russells opportunity for mischief and we can be certain that given that opportunity, they will always take it; or at the very least, I can be certain that Skippy will.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Extremely Stubborn or Incredibly Lazy?

I think it is normal for animals to move when their personal space is invaded or disrupted. Agreed? Good. So what's the deal with my dog, then? My cat seems to have no problem understanding this concept. When she is lying on my lap and I need to get up, I only have to move slightly and she gets the hint and leaves. Skippy, on the other hand, would gladly stay on my lap until I am almost upright and gravity takes over. It's tempting to see if she would actually let herself fall; but as she starts to slide off my lap when I begin to stand, it's clear that she would rather tumble two feet to the floor than move out of the way.

This refusal to move isn't just limited to lap-time. Skippy occupies a small space on the bed at night, due to her need to get up and walk around on the laminate floor at 3 o'clock in the morning; so we compromise. On more than one occasion one of us has woken up to the sound of too little air being drawn desperately into a small pair of Jack Russell lungs. We then realize that one of us has rolled onto the dog and is slowly suffocating her. Good job, Skippy. Whatever you do, don't move or try to save yourself. We even woke up once to see her wedged between the wall and the bed, legs dangling in the air. Apparently, we had nudged her over too far. She just looked at me, stuck as she was, trying to figure out what happened. Here's some advice, Skippy: move.

Another time, she climbed in between the duvet and its cover to find a cozy place for an afternoon nap. Before she could get comfortable she did that nesting thing that Jack Russells do, but as she was rapidly moving around and pawing at the duvet, she fell off the bed while still inside the cover, and the duvet followed on top of her. She landed in a crumpled ball of fabric. We could see her shape moving a little as she looked around her. There was no visible way out and so she decided to lie back down and continue her nap until she was rescued.

In a slightly related incident, but far less deadly, Skippy climbed into the laundry hamper for a nap while my wife was making the bed. When the dirty sheets were unknowingly thrown on top of her, Skippy did not budge. Why move? We could bury her under heaps of dirty clothes and she would lay there, wheezing, indefinitely. So, what's up with my Jack Russell? Is she so innately stubborn or is she actually that lazy? I'd like to suggest a third option. How about crazy?

Maybe if I'm quiet I could live here.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

A Single-Minded Sense of Smell

I met another Jack Russell owner this summer on one of our excursions to cottage country, who told us that he uses his little dog to hunt deer. I thought that was strange. I am aware that Jacks are bred to hunt small game, like rabbits, but I could not picture a deer. According to this fellow (I didn't ask his name), Jack Russells have a more discerning sense of smell than hounds and can distinguish between old and newer scents. The beagle or the hound will follow an old scent for days, while the Jack will abandon it in search of one more recent. I found this fascinating and then tried to imagine Skippy hunting a deer. I imagined her catching up to it, then rolling over and asking for a belly rub. But the conversation also reminded me of something that happened during Skippy's third trip into Algonquin Park, involving a snake.

Skippy found a toad, as she often likes to do, which she proceeded to chase into a small crevasse between some large logs that supported one of the benches. Unfortunately for the toad, there was a garter snake in the crevasse who was glad for the free meal. Before that day, Skippy had never seen a snake; and it did not cease to capture her attention.

Over the next hour, while the snake digested the toad, we tried unsuccessfully to keep Skippy from sticking her nose or paws between the logs. I don't think the snake could have done anything to her, but my wife was paranoid about it. Trying to keep a Jack Russell, especially one with OCD like ours, away from its perceived prey is just an exercise in futility and frustration. They are surprisingly strong-willed creatures.

Eventually, the snake made a break for it, probably not wanting to wait around until Skippy got lucky and dragged it out. What surprised me was that it did this in front of the dog, while provoking no attack of opportunity. Skippy seemed not to notice. Yes, I too thought this was very strange, but she returned to her efforts to remove the snake from it's sanctuary, all the while sniffing frantically around the logs. But like a true Jack Russell, she quickly figured it out and started to track the snake, which was now about ten feet away, feeling very confident.

In fact, I think this snake was slightly over-confident: one might even say, brazen. Not only did it leave the logs right in front of Skippy's eyes without detection, but when it realized that she had now picked up the scent and was heading in its direction, it slithered right toward her. Skippy's face hovered above the ground like a sniffing metal detector. The snake came within inches of her face as it slithered between her legs. Skippy's motions remained unchanged. When she reached the spot where the snake had been, she turned back in the direction she had just come and continued to follow the trail. The snake stopped for a photo as it entered the brush, then continued on out of sight, successfully eluding our poor Jack Russell, who was still sniffing, unaware that the hunt was over.

What's up with my Jack Russell? Is her sense of smell so refined that it must eliminate the adequate function of her other senses? Or is she so single-minded when hunting so as to focus completely on the trail, blocking out all other distractions—including her prey? Again, I have no answers, but I really think she would have caught it if she hadn't been so focused on smelling it.

It should also be noted that for the eleven days following this incident she did not stop sniffing around the logs or the exact same path the snake had taken: we didn't see the snake again.

Skippy is a few feet away, hot on the trail.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

A Celebration of Dogness

I want to take this opportunity to contradict the description of my blog and mention all of the neat little things that Skippy does that, not only endear her to us, but let us know that we are loved. Naturally, because this is my eccentric, neurotic, and possibly senile dog, these behaviours are consistent with her other less-endearing ones. So indulge me this once and I'll tell you why my Jack Russell is so great.

Every day I commute to work, in north Toronto, a little over an hour each way. I'm an English teacher and my wife is an artist who stays at home with our two daughters: Kitty and Skippy. Kitty is our teenager, indifferent to life outside her sphere, with little tolerance for us when the needs of our lives interfere with hers. She is only the teenager in attitude, though. Skippy, two years older, gladly plays the role of the younger sister; blindly devoted to her older sibling, despite the cat's mere tolerance of her presence. She is the baby of  the family. We stay up all night with her watching "So You Think You Can Dance", with Cat Deeley, during thunderstorms; she naps every afternoon; she cries when she doesn't understand something, and we understand these different cries; she loves to snuggle up as close as she can get; she demands our attention when not enough of it has been given; and she misses us when we are away. So she is dependent upon us. But how does she show her love?

At around four o'clock she sits in the entrance to the kitchen and stares across the great expanse of the living room to the front door. She knows that it won't be long before I come through that door and she can greet me with an unbridled barrage of barks. This can get very sad when I have to coach or have a meeting and don't make my entrance until seven. Yes, she still waits, albeit rather impatiently, and then, when I finally arrive, she will not settle until I sit on the floor, rub her belly and let her lie down beside me. When grandma and grandpa bring her home after a visit, she eagerly presses her nose up to the window of their car and whines with restrained excitement at the anticipation of coming home to see us again.

It's great to have this little bundle of joy follow me around the house wherever I go. No sarcasm here: it's actually quite cute. She overreacts when we leave her, but is so happy to see us again. Her love is unconditional. She only asks for our love in return; not in payment for her own but as a fulfilment of a basic need. As a couple with no children, and who are not likely to have any in the future, this tiny Jack Russell, perhaps in some small way, also fills a need in us.

Why isn't he home yet? That's fine, I'll just wait.


Wednesday, October 13, 2010

The Dog's Dead!

Somehow sleeping has been added to my Jack Russell's long list of bizarre behaviours. Yes, she even sleeps abnormally. The most common deviation from the standard stomach sleep is the fetal position; incredibly cute, but not very strange, I guess. It's kind of strange that she can curl herself up in such a compact, tiny ball. Maybe. (I have a great photo of this but I can't find it)

Another slightly more strange sleeping position is when she completely lies on her back. Again, I'm sure that other dogs must do this, but it doesn't make any more normal. All she needs is a blanket to go across her body, neatly tucked under her fore paws, to complete this ridiculous caricature of a sleeping human.


She also snores dreadfully loud when sleeping like this.
The most bizarre sleeping position of all is when she sleeps like we just got her back from the taxidermist. If the first two weren't strange, then this one definitely is. She's mainly on her side, but sort of on an awkward, upward angle with all four legs in the air frozen in stasis. The first time this happened I really had to look twice and make sure that she was breathing, and then exclaimed that this is the weirdest dog I have ever seen. What makes this even more creepy is that her eyes are partially open. How can anything, dog or otherwise actually sleep like that? My Jack Russell does. It's now just commonplace in our home to walk by, glance down and comment as a matter of fact: "Hey, the dog's dead again."

Weird.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Skippy and the Bully

I would say that since the summer of this year the relationship between Skippy and Kitty has improved significantly. The direct cause of this has to do with a general improvement in the cat's temperament. It seems that Kitty no longer hisses when Skippy walks by. The two of them have peacefully passed away hours within a few feet of each other as they napped on our bed. And Skippy has been allowed to barrel down the living room corridor unhindered whenever she enters the house. Needless to say, it's been a relatively peaceful home these past five weeks. What has effected this change in our usually callous cat? I don't know; but just this week she relapsed into her old ways.

In our kitchen we have two water dishes out for the animals, along with Skippy's Brain Diet food (the cat's food is up high because Skippy was eating it). Skippy began eating, following her usual routine (totally a future blog post in itself) of grabbing a few pieces of food from her dish, bringing them into the living room, eating them and returning for more. Kitty, who was lurking nearby, placed herself beside Skippy's dish and decided to interrupt the routine. When Skippy returned for another mouthful, the cat hissed repeatedly, driving her away. Skippy tried a second time but there the cat remained, hissing over and over until Skippy skulked away, crying. She jumped up onto the couch where my wife was sitting and began to shake.

Skippy had gotten used to this improved level of tolerance and had become quite complacent with Kitty. Maybe this was intentional on the cat's part: some elaborate scheme to get Skippy to let her guard down, perhaps. It's difficult to tell with cats sometimes, how much of their behaviour is planned with an end result in mind, or how much is merely a whim. Either way, I think Kitty simply saw an opportunity to amuse herself, and us too, as it turns out; because, as much as we sympathize with Skippy's plight in this situation, we can't ignore how funny it was.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Things Jack Russells Eat While Camping

When we go to Algonquin Park for our annual canoe trip we always pack enough food for Skippy. Sometimes, however, her pallet longs for more natural flavours. On various trips, these have included blueberries, toads, voles, and moles; and the occasional tree.

The blueberries were eaten quite by accident. One of the islands we stayed on happened to be covered with them. When you're in the wild, living on mostly processed food, fresh blueberries every morning and evening with desert provide welcome colour and nutrients to the diet. Skippy seemed quite interested in the whole picking process. At first she observed by walking back and forth between us, curious to see what we were doing. Once she understood, she decided to take part in the picking and began eating blueberries right off the bush.

I don't know why this surprised me. Sure, it was funny to see her essentially participating in our activity, but it spoke to a larger social reality. It got me thinking about pack mentality. Skippy was not merely mimicking an action, but she observed and understood the purpose of what we were doing as a group, and then began contributing to the effort. This behaviour that at first seemed quirky and very Skippy-like, was actually very dog-like and quite brilliant.

Skippy continued to impress me. Soon, her ability to catch small animals began to emerge. Now the toad was never actually eaten. She of course obsessed over it, as one would expect, but when she finally grabbed the toad with her mouth with the intention of eating, or so I assume, it was immediately spit back out. Skippy then hacked and began to look at us for help as the unwanted taste lingered in her mouth. She actually learned from this experience and has not done it since, although she still obsesses over them, sniffing them out between the rocks of every fire pit we visit.

If you've never seen a vole before, they are something like tiny mice; no match for a Jack Russell. The slightly larger, mole, was also easily caught by Skippy. She even brought us the carcass, setting her trophy down at our feet, completely proud of her deed: that made two of us. I felt bad for these little critters for a few seconds before I began to wonder: when did my dog become so cool? Is this the same creature that licks my furniture and is daily outwitted by my cat?

This story wouldn't become complete without something a little weird; and even this was probably more comical than weird. On our very first trip with Skippy in 2004 she just started eating trees. We couldn't figure this one out. We really tried, but between the four of us we could offer up nothing other than this was just enjoyable for her, and therefore probably seemed pretty normal in Skippy's world. So what's up with my Jack Russell? She's closet cool, that's what. You just have to take her camping to see it.


I guess I can imagine that this would be fun.

Friday, October 1, 2010

When Self-Preservation Goes Out the Window

Most of us have probably heard of or learned about the survival instinct of animals from somewhere; maybe it was from high school biology, perhaps the Discovery Channel, or depending on your vintage, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. I'm sure the specifics of our lessons vary greatly, but I don't think I'm assuming much to say that it's fairly common knowledge that animals, and most humans, would not knowingly act in such a a way that would put them in danger, but act in a way as to preserve their lives. Sure a cheetah will perhaps venture into lion territory for the hope of a meal, but the need to prevent certain death by starvation, outweighs the potential risk of death by lion. My point is that the same cheetah would not jump off of a cliff in hopes of catching that same prey, regardless of its hunger. Where am I going with this? I'm pretty sure my Jack Russell's survival instinct is broken.

Like most dogs, Skippy loves to hang her head out the window of a moving vehicle and feel the wind push her lips back to her ears. The first time she wanted to her head out the window, I obliged but only after I attached her leash to her collar. For some reason I was hesitant to trust her to make good decisions. She was excited but only went so far as putting her hind feet on the arm-rest of the door in an attempt to expose more of her surface area to the wind. She followed this same pattern for the next few trips, gradually leading to believe this would be the norm. I think you know where this is going.

I have seen too much of Skippy's eccentricities and irrational behaviour to ever trust her completely; even with something as seemingly obvious as not plunging to her own death. Surely she must have known the extent of the danger awaiting her just outside the window. But maybe she didn't. In her eagerness to get as much wind as possible, she somehow managed to get all four of her paws onto the door's narrow window ledge. We were going 80 km/h! This was absolutely insane. Despite my reservations, I was totally surprised but managed to yank her back into the safety of the Jeep before she plummeted to the highway.

If she were human we would not hesitate to say this was completely stupid; but we understand the extent of the danger. And unless there are several unreported dog deaths from falling out of car windows at high speed, I would assume that most dogs also recognize this danger. The question is, what happened to Skippy's innate self-preservation? The answers is, I have no idea. So what is up with my Jack Russell?

"I just want wind over my entire body!"