Many Of Us Horse People Share An Affliction Called Jack Russells

Until about 10 years ago, our family always had dogs of proper size (at least knee-high) that displayed normal behavior. The Jack Russell terror in our house started with a phone call from friends who were at a terrier trial and saw these "adorable puppies" just desperate for a good home. At the time, neither my husband nor I had a clue about terrier trials or the fact that a Jack Russell is never desperate for anything.

With a lot of encouragement from people who were really just looking for partners in crime, we agreed to look at the puppy. It was a female, about fist size. She looked harmless enough and, like all puppies, was irresistible. She moved in and immediately took over operations.

We named her Digger, and that stopped her from ever digging for anything. Instead, she concentrated on climbing trees. Her great passion in life was squirrels, and in pursuit of her prey she would hurl herself into the trees and tear up the branches in complete oblivion to the fact that this was not a dog thing to do.

If she ever downed a squirrel, I'm sure it was from a heart attack, since the creatures certainly never expected the dog to follow them up the tree.

We were forever approached by visitors who would hesitantly ask us if we thought there was a dog in the big tree out front? We would once again drag out the ladder and get Digger down while the people sighed in relief—relief that they weren't crazy.

As sweet as Digger was, she was heavily into revenge. She hated being left home alone, and she gnawed a plum-sized hole in the center of the linoleum kitchen floor the first time we abandoned her for an hour. I didn't mind the hole so much as the location. The whole floor had to be replaced.

A while later, when we thought she was grown up and could be trusted alone in the house, I arrived home to find a puddle in the middle of the dining table. While checking for a leak in the ceiling and finding none, it suddenly dawned on me what had happened. She would have paid dearly, except I could not find her anywhere until I had stopped laughing at her nerve.

Don't think for a minute that a Jack doesn't know exactly what it is doing and why. They are truly scary.

One weekend, my mother informed me that she "had a surprise for me." Strange things happen when Mother visits, and I sure was surprised when she showed up with another Jack Russell puppy. It was a present from my groom, who got a puppy for Christmas from us two years earlier. Payback is a bitch, but in this case it was a dog, and we named him Chipper.

Chipper had eyes just like Lady in Lady And The Tramp—big, brown, and sparkling—and Digger tolerated him, although she found his fascination with fetching balls, sticks and anything people would throw a bit much. When we lost Digger to sudden heart failure, I thought a breather from Jacks would be nice, but then our borrowed live-in kid wanted a puppy, and the circus was on again.

At a show in Tampa, Fla., I found Scooter. He was the opposite of the ugly duckling. As a puppy he was adorable, and every day he matured to become more splay-footed, cross-eyed and long-backed. His final shape is odd, to say the least, but Mother Nature tries to keep things in balance, and Scooter is one of the smartest dogs I have ever met.