A popular breed that needs lots of care
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Owners of jack russell terriers need to remember thta their pets are hunters at heart
AT A SHOP SELLING fish supplies lives a pack of Jack Russell terriers - at least, I think they’re Jrts.
They act like Jrts – intelligent, merry, energetic little dogs. They’ve been raised by loving owners too, so despite being extremely talkative, once they remember me from previous visits, they dance around, checking out my shopping bags and the legs of my jeans.
The Jrt is so attractive that it appears in movies and on TV, but I expect the trainers are very experienced. These dogs are not easy to train, and they don’t accept harsh words very readily.
They are, however, very loyal, and the pack at the fish shop constantly demonstrate their eagerness to protect their owners and their territory.
The owners assure me that all four in the pack are Jrts, but I’m not completely sure. It’s hard to tell, mainly because the owners firmly believe that if you love your dog, then you feed your dog a lot.
As a result, the little dogs look very fat, a bit like stuffed sausages.
The dogs don’t get much exercise either, just running up and down the soi outside the shop. Some people keep their Jrt in a condominium, real torture for this active breed.
Such a high-energy breed needs lots of exercise. It’s a working dog, after all, developed to hunt prey. For this reason, unless carefully socialised as pups, Jrts don’t usually play very well with other species, especially cats.
The other day, one of my vet’s clients discovered the hunting instincts of her own pack of four Jrts when they attacked a cat.
This cat had been living on the roof, away from the dogs. She had even given birth on the roof. Now, the kids’ eyes were opened, they were exploring their world, and somehow, they had ended up on the ground.
It was on the ground that the dogs found them. Bred for hunting, the dogs were about to kill the kittens when the mother jumped between them and her babies.
The dogs attacked her, and the mother screamed, swinging her sharp claws back and forth.
She wasn’t strong enough. The dogs had bitten her severely before the owner could pull them off, lock them in the house and rush the mother to the vet.
In shock from pain and loss of blood, the mother was unconscious. Luckily, emergency treatment brought her around, and the next day, the dogs’ owner brought her babies to her. Within a week, she and the kids were well enough to go home.
Question: Were the dogs “bad” or “evil” for attacking the kittens and their mother? Of course not. They were simply doing what they were bred to do.
I do hope, though, that the owner has checked each dog carefully for puncture wounds from the mother’s sharp claws. I also hope that she’s found a place where the cat family can live safely, away from the jaws of these little but powerful dogs.
