It's no secret that I love my dogs very much, they are my best friends and partners in this journey of discovery. JackJack has been with since he was a puppy and Carter joined our family just over two years ago. Living with terriers is a little bit different than living with your average, run of the mill Lab though. My dogs have personality and quirks in spades and sometimes they get into more trouble than their dad can handle. Carter is a very good dog if not a little dim for a terrier but he really doesn't hold a candle to Jack in the personality department.
Jack thinks the world is his and everyone is just living in it because he lets them. Jack is also a premier fighter of evil.....the problem is that his definition of evil is very broad. When we lived on the island we had neighbors ( perennially know as the "chaos neighbors") who had a 5 years old devil child named Damian (I'm seriously not making this up). This Damian child's favorite thing in the entire world was to torment Jack when he was hanging out outside and the lead I had for him. Jack would energetically attempt to rip his face off but the lead always kept him from becoming front page newspaper material. Damian thought his threats were funny (I'm not kidding, this kid really is the antichrist). On top of that, there was also an unruly, skateboarding teenager in the Chaos Neighbors household who loved to tease Jack with his skateboard whenever he had the chance. Thus in Jack's mind, all little boys and teenagers are evil and must be persecuted with extreme prejudice. If said little boys or teenagers happen to be riding or in the presence of a skateboard, they are a direct threat to world peace and must be torn limb from limb, pissed upon, boiled in acid, chewed up, and then ejected into space. I'm not kidding, Jack has a serious "Mad On" for little boys and teenagers. This of course, causes me no end of embarrassment when he decides someone is evil and is trying to let the whole world know of it. Other things that are considered evil are: the garbage truck, the pizza guy, the UPS guy, Harley Davidsons, any large truck, any dog caught in his "territory" out in front of our apartment and the vacuum cleaner. As you can guess, Jack spends a lot of time barking, barking at nothing.
Jack also thinks he runs the show in my household. He is so athletic that counter tops are as easy for him as they would be for your average cat. He's also ungodly smart with a mischievous streak a mile wide. I have to crate him and Carter whenever I leave the house, otherwise anything that's on the counters or my garbage cans are considered fair game. One day I left half of pizza in it's box on the counter top and stepped out to run a few quick errands. I came home to find a huge gaping hole in the center of the pizza box with the entire contents of the leftover pizza missing. He had stood on top of the pizza box and eaten his way through it to get at the pizza.
He's a really asshole when he wants to be too. He considers it to be his sacred duty to roll in any laundry that is fresh out of the dryer waiting to be hung up. He loves him some horse shit and will never pass up the chance to roll in a particularly fresh specimen when we are on the trail. He used to eat the crotch out of every pair of thongs my ex-wife had. He gets mad when I play too much X-box and pisses on it in the middle of the night. He's an alpha with a terrier attitude problem when it comes to other dogs too. He doesn't care at all for actually saying hi to another dog, he's just interested in smelling there ass and if said dog so much as breathes on his junk, it's on like Donkey Kong. Jack also has absolutely no patience for puppies either, as soon as one jumps on him it's ass whooping time times two. One wonderful day their was this couple up at blue mountain that said they were babysitting an Australian Shepard puppy that made the mistake of jumping on Jack. He knocked the thing on it's ass so fast and scared it so badly that it ran under the nearest car and wouldn't come out until Jack was out of sight. The couple coaxed the puppy out while we headed up the trail and I thought that would be the end of it. However, when we were getting back to the trailhead after our hike, the couple and said puppy just happened to be getting back from another trail at the same time. They were so scared of my 22 lb. dog that they picked up the puppy and ran for their vehicle in a frantic panic. I just looked at him and commented on the ruckus that he created, I was embarrassed to say the least, Jack was pleased with his handiwork.
Jack absolutely insists on sleeping under the covers and if I have a female guest over, he insists on sleeping in between us (not like that's happened in over a year and a half now). I can't eat dinner on the couch because I can't keep his nose out of my plate. I flick him on the nose every time but he just gets angry and wrinkles his nose at me. He absolutely refuses to let me sleep through the night and gets me up at least once to let him out, he says it's so he can relieve himself but I think he secretly does it just for an excuse to go outside and make sure nothing evil isn't going on.
For all the character and trouble that Jack causes, I wouldn't change him in any way if I could. In a lot of ways, he reflects a lot of my personality and I can't fault him for that. I didn't want just a dog, I wanted something with some personality and I got that and then some. Jack has been there in the happiest times of my life and he's been there for the worst too. He may be a huge jerk but he's my jerk and I can't imagine life without him.
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