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.