“At the shelter,” said Genine, “they told us that Jackson’s feral Terrier-mix litter was discovered in the woods. He was as cute as a button - but so disproportionate that he could chase and catch his tail! His eyes are rimmed in black like Disney’s Captain Jack Sparro, so his nick name is
‘Jacko’.
This is definitely a family dog! Our daughter ‘helped’ by temporarily moving home to help the puppy settle in and our youngest son took Jackson to obedience class.
Like any youngster, human or canine, Jackson lives to play. His favorite time, at obedience class, was ‘play time’. He learned how to ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ and he’s finally mastered the command to ‘come’, as long as he doesn’t have a stick in his
mouth!
Unfortunately, while he’s passionate about retrieving sticks he won’t give them back! He runs 20 yards from us, puts it down, and then stands over it guarding it. The only way to get him to give up one stick is to throw another! Has he reversed roles and is training ‘us’ to fetch!?
Jackson likes a good game of ‘Chase Me-Chase Me’ or having sticks tossed in a creek, river, or ocean. He loves the water (deep puddles) and as soon as he
sees any he runs right in - rain, shine or cold!
Jackson has a love/hate relationship with stuffed dog toys and their squeakers. He’s a pro who rips a toy apart in mere minutes and retrieves its squeaker, just like a kid with a box of cereal digging for the prize. He then plays with the plastic squeaker- throwing it around and carrying it in his mouth - for hours.
Maybe Jackson thinks that the squeaker is the toy and that the rest of the
stuffed animal is gift wrap? Our home is always littered with mysterious bits of stuffing.
Last year, my husband, Keith, asked for an unusual birthday gift - to have Jackson’s DNA deciphered. Because Jackson looks foreign to any other dog on the planet, my husband received his wish. I presented him with a doggy DNA test kit.
We swabbed inside Jackson’s cheek and sent it into the lab. We deliberately did not include a
photograph, so it would be a blind study. We also did not describe him or the color of his soft wiry-black-brown and orange fur with his white tipped tail and paws.
Here are the surprising results!
20-40 % Irish Setter
20-40 % Alaska Malamute
10-20% Dalmatian, Pekingese and English Setter
Not a bit of Terrier in the mix! The Red Irish Setter explains his coloring and malamutes are known for two things which explains
Jackson’s beautiful black lined eyes and his desire to vocalize. He’ll march into the family room and start ‘talking’. His tone modulates up and down and he goes on for several minutes - he is definitely telling us something, but we can’t translate his dog tales!
Jackson loves his family - paws-ibly that is why he failed doggie daycare!? He went four times before they advised me not to bring him back, because he spent the entire time waiting by the front gate
looking for me to return and ‘rescue’ him. To rub insult into injury or ‘mother’s guilt’ they showed me a video of Jackson desperately waiting for my return.
Now, for socialization he ‘visits’ our son’s girlfriend who moonlights as a dog walker. Jackson’s new buddy is her client’s bird-obsessed dog who spends his time running around trying to catch birds. Jackson is paws-itive that the dog is playing ‘Chase Me-Chase Me’, so he joins in chasing the dog. At the end of the
day, both dogs are worn out!
I take Jackson to a ‘People Only’ walking path with a dog path beside it, divided by a chain link fence. There are occasional breaks in the fence allowing parents to attend their dog. But at each break, Jackson gleefully bounced off the doggie trail to join us. We had to train him to ‘stay’ on ‘his’ trail.
My human walking buddy admitted, ‘We had a Spaniel that I tried walking on the divided lanes, but in 17 years
I never succeeded. Instead I ended up walking with him on the dog path or carrying him on the human side!’ Sometimes I think dogs are smarter than their people!”
