Adventures of a Crazy Dog
Correction: of being OWNED by a Jack Russell Terrier.
Lucille Beatrice Mildred McVay
Friday, August 26, 2011
I'm still Here!
Sorry, I started a new job last week so have been strapped for time! More coming soon, I swear! While you wait please enjoy this recent shot of Lucy:
Saturday, August 13, 2011
How to Teach a JRT to "Speak"
First, you need a Pit Bull-Rottie Mix (we call him a "Pitweiller"), then teach him to speak and voila: Speaking JRT:
Friday, August 12, 2011
Fear of Reposession
About a week after we adopted Lucy I went to gather her paperwork so I could take it to animal control and get her registered as mine. You know: get her license and make sure she had all of her shots and stuff.
I looked at the paperwork, which I had not read before, (what? she was a free dog. I didn't care if she had a pedigree or anything and I didn't have to sign anything. what?? she's a Jack Russell! I was busy walking her and paying attention to her and trying (admittedly in vain) to keep her out of trouble!)and noticed that she had previously been adopted from the local shelter. Then I saw item #12 on one of the adoption agreement forms that says "If for any reason you are unable to keep this animal you agree to return it to the shelter."
My memory flashed back to a crying Ellen Degeneres. Ellen had adopted a dog from a shelter and when the dog didn't get along with her other pets she gave it to her hairdresser's family who had fallen in love with the dog. Unfortunately Ellen had signed adoption papers that said that if she could not keep the animal she must return it to the shelter. The shelter came to the housekeepers house and repossessed the dog!Ellen was crying on national TV, her audience was crying, there were threats of violence against the shelter, on and on.
Both sides had their points and this post isn't about who was wrong or right. This post is about how Instant Panic set in!
Oh my god, they were going to repossess Lucy! I'd just lost Libby four days before getting Lucy and now a week after getting her the pound is going to take her away from me!
I couldn't concentrate at work. I kept bursting into random tears. I was afraid to tell anyone what was going on with the fear that they'd turn us into the shelter. Sometimes google and ask yahoo are your enemy. Half the people I "asked" at yahoo said yes, she was going to be taken back, the other half said no way, they can't do that because we weren't the ones who signed that paperwork in the first place.
I emailed a friend of mine who worked at a shelter in Wisconsin and asked her to email her friend in the shelter here so they couldn't track me down. Yes, I can be THAT paranoid. I had fallen completely in love with this little dog in the week we had her, and she loved all of us. I couldn't bear the thought of losing her!
My friend agreed to email her friend, but we didn't hear back for a couple of days and the panic just increased.So, because I am Instant Gratification Girl (something my personality has in common with JRTs) I emailed the shelter myself, with a "hypothetical" scenario.
"Hypothetically speaking", I wrote,"if a person who adopts one of your animals and can no longer care for the animal but instead of bringing it back to you they give it to someone else, would you repossess that animal from the second party?" I did this email from my real email address. This is a small town and I also reminded them in the email how we had adopted Sammy and Libby, a guinea pig, and birds from them over the years, and I said "this is just hypothetical, mind you... for a friend..."
8 days went by before I got an answer. 8 freakin' days where my paranoia could fester and bloom like a giant stinking Titan Arum. Finally I got an answer from them. It took me two more days to be brave enough to open the email.
What a relief! The manager of the shelter did remember our family and how we keep what we adopt its entire life. She said that no, if the animal was in a safe and healthy home they would not take it back. They don't want to have to re-house animals, they want them to be in safe permanent homes. Then at the end of her email she added, "but if this is Lucy, and you've adopted her from the _________'s you need to call me right away. I have lot to tell you about Lucy!"
I had to email her back to tell her I'd call her later and I said "Yes, it is Lucy, and I love her so so so so much! I've been so afraid you would take her back like they did Ellen's dog! I was getting ready to change our identities, learn Catalan and move to Andorra!" The shelter lady emailed again with an LOL and said no, they know we are a good family, but still wanted me to call her as soon as I could.
Upcoming blog entry will be about why the shelter needed to talk to us about Lucy. Stay tuned.
I looked at the paperwork, which I had not read before, (what? she was a free dog. I didn't care if she had a pedigree or anything and I didn't have to sign anything. what?? she's a Jack Russell! I was busy walking her and paying attention to her and trying (admittedly in vain) to keep her out of trouble!)and noticed that she had previously been adopted from the local shelter. Then I saw item #12 on one of the adoption agreement forms that says "If for any reason you are unable to keep this animal you agree to return it to the shelter."
My memory flashed back to a crying Ellen Degeneres. Ellen had adopted a dog from a shelter and when the dog didn't get along with her other pets she gave it to her hairdresser's family who had fallen in love with the dog. Unfortunately Ellen had signed adoption papers that said that if she could not keep the animal she must return it to the shelter. The shelter came to the housekeepers house and repossessed the dog!Ellen was crying on national TV, her audience was crying, there were threats of violence against the shelter, on and on.
Both sides had their points and this post isn't about who was wrong or right. This post is about how Instant Panic set in!
Oh my god, they were going to repossess Lucy! I'd just lost Libby four days before getting Lucy and now a week after getting her the pound is going to take her away from me!
I couldn't concentrate at work. I kept bursting into random tears. I was afraid to tell anyone what was going on with the fear that they'd turn us into the shelter. Sometimes google and ask yahoo are your enemy. Half the people I "asked" at yahoo said yes, she was going to be taken back, the other half said no way, they can't do that because we weren't the ones who signed that paperwork in the first place.
I emailed a friend of mine who worked at a shelter in Wisconsin and asked her to email her friend in the shelter here so they couldn't track me down. Yes, I can be THAT paranoid. I had fallen completely in love with this little dog in the week we had her, and she loved all of us. I couldn't bear the thought of losing her!
My friend agreed to email her friend, but we didn't hear back for a couple of days and the panic just increased.So, because I am Instant Gratification Girl (something my personality has in common with JRTs) I emailed the shelter myself, with a "hypothetical" scenario.
"Hypothetically speaking", I wrote,"if a person who adopts one of your animals and can no longer care for the animal but instead of bringing it back to you they give it to someone else, would you repossess that animal from the second party?" I did this email from my real email address. This is a small town and I also reminded them in the email how we had adopted Sammy and Libby, a guinea pig, and birds from them over the years, and I said "this is just hypothetical, mind you... for a friend..."
8 days went by before I got an answer. 8 freakin' days where my paranoia could fester and bloom like a giant stinking Titan Arum. Finally I got an answer from them. It took me two more days to be brave enough to open the email.
What a relief! The manager of the shelter did remember our family and how we keep what we adopt its entire life. She said that no, if the animal was in a safe and healthy home they would not take it back. They don't want to have to re-house animals, they want them to be in safe permanent homes. Then at the end of her email she added, "but if this is Lucy, and you've adopted her from the _________'s you need to call me right away. I have lot to tell you about Lucy!"
I had to email her back to tell her I'd call her later and I said "Yes, it is Lucy, and I love her so so so so much! I've been so afraid you would take her back like they did Ellen's dog! I was getting ready to change our identities, learn Catalan and move to Andorra!" The shelter lady emailed again with an LOL and said no, they know we are a good family, but still wanted me to call her as soon as I could.
Upcoming blog entry will be about why the shelter needed to talk to us about Lucy. Stay tuned.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
What can a JRT do in less than 6 Minutes?
She can do this:
And afterwards, when you've come back into the kitchen, she does this:
Because SHE KNOWS she did wrong! Yes, she did hide behind those buckets under the fish tank for quite a while. I suppose in her little walnut sized brain she thought I couldn't see her under there or something.
Literally: 6 or maybe 8 minutes.
And afterwards, when you've come back into the kitchen, she does this:
Because SHE KNOWS she did wrong! Yes, she did hide behind those buckets under the fish tank for quite a while. I suppose in her little walnut sized brain she thought I couldn't see her under there or something.
Literally: 6 or maybe 8 minutes.
Lucy Enters Our Lives
On January 8th, 2011, Lucy came to live with us. Lucy is a 15 pound, adorable, Jack Russell Terrier. Lucy is also certifiably insane.
I suppose I should start at the beginning. I mean, the very beginning of when I became a dog person, because it's possible that Lucy is not all that crazy, but that I may be the insane one in our house.
I am 47 years old, so although my friends tell me "40 is the new 30" let's be honest: 47 is pretty much middle aged. My ancestors lived to be about 82 to 84 so yeah, 47 is actually more than half way there. Crap. I just bummed myself out.
Anyway... I had a dog as a child but I don't really count that. I mean, I was 14 when he died and he was really my dad's dog anyway. When I was 36 I moved in with a guy I had met on the internet. He lived in Alaska, we are now married and still live in Alaska. Lance, my husband, had a large mixed breed dog. That dog was the first dog I had lived with since I was 14.
Before this dog I had not disliked dogs at all, I had just always had cats, since it's considerably easier to rent an apartment with a cat than it is a dog. I became pretty fond of this dog of my husband's when the dog, at the age of 14 years, decided to take a walk, alone, in a snowstorm one night that he didn't survive.
After a few months my husband adopted another dog. Another large dog. I didn't (and still don't, really) know very much about how to handle dogs back then so this giant dog was a bit of a nightmare for me in many ways, but he was loveable and I grew to really adore him and had pretty much resigned myself to the Big Dog household when my husband emailed me an ad for a little Smooth Fox Terrier.
At this point I emailed back "sure, what the hell. I fell in love with the giant dog, surely I will grow to love this little dog as well."
And I did, but not before given a hardcore, sink-or-swim training in the world that is Terriers.
There is a lovely blog called "No Dogs for Old Men" that can explain far better than I ever can what living with a Smooth Foxie is like.
This SFT was named Libby and I grew to love her like no one and nothing I have loved before. Terriers, at least for me, have a way of wiggling their way into your heart and leaving an indelible paw print on it. Libby was a challenge and then some. She was 6 or 7 years old when we got her and pretty set in her ways. She was also exactly like the dogs in that blog above! Not a good "road dog", a digger, tenacious to the point of madness, an escape artist. I could go on and on about my beautiful Libby but this blog is about Lucy so I'll just say how until I met my husband I didn't know I was a dog person, much less a terrier person and my husband says it takes a "special kind of whack job" to be a terrier person.
I should clarify here and mention that the giant dog we got after "my first dog", the one that wandered out in the snow storm one night, also passed away. He passed in August of 2009, and my husband adopted ANOTHER large mixed breed boy dog in October of that year. This one lives with us and is Lucy's big brother, Ollie. Ollie did get to live with Libby for a while before Libby also grew old and passed away.
Here's a little photo of Ollie and Libby:
When Libby got sick and passed away my heart was utterly broken.
I just now sat here for 10 minutes thinking of what I could add to the sentence above and decided to let it be.
Libby died on January 4th 2011. Now here's where things get a little weird. On January 7th I was bored and read craigslist. Thing is, I NEVER read craigslist because as much as I love the internet and buy lots of shit there and got a husband from the internet, I have always assumed that craigslist is a bunch of scams. But it was on craigslist that I found an ad for a little Jack Russell Terrier girl that needed a new home.
That night I had a dream where we went to see the dog, and in the dream I asked the owners her name and they said "oh, her name is Lucy."
The next morning I decided what the hell, and called them. No one had adopted the dog yet so we went to meet her.
We get to the house and the couple open their bedroom door and out comes this little bolt of white lightning! She hurtles herself into my husband's arms before he even makes it to the top of the staircase he's climbing.
Right away I notice that she is absolutely the cutest dog I've ever seen. Mostly white with one brown ear and one freckled ear. She notices me looking her direction and flings herself fearlessly out of my husband's arms and rushes over to me.
I tried frantically to remember if I had absentmindedly rubbed bacon grease on my face that morning or something because the way she was going at my face you'd have thought I did for sure.
We're talking to the owners, asking about her shots, and health, behaviors (they lied, by the way, but more on that later) and reasons they were giving her up (they also lied about this...) and then I asked "oh, by the way, what's her name?"
"Her name is Lucy." said the woman.
It was pretty obvious that fate was playing some strange game with me at that point, so we took her home to meet Ollie and see how they would get along and if she'd like our house and our family.
This is Lucy 20 minutes after we got her to our house, "swimming" on the chenille bedspread:
Two hours later I called the people back and said "we're keeping her." I should have wondered at the time why her old owners didn't seem too upset to be losing her, but I was distracted by The Cutest Dog In The World coming to live at my house.
I was soon to learn that the "challenges" I had with Libby were like singing the Alphabet song compared to what Lucy would hit me with being like singing the Alphabet song, in Russian, backwards while on meth when you don't even speak Russian in the first place.
I suppose I should start at the beginning. I mean, the very beginning of when I became a dog person, because it's possible that Lucy is not all that crazy, but that I may be the insane one in our house.
I am 47 years old, so although my friends tell me "40 is the new 30" let's be honest: 47 is pretty much middle aged. My ancestors lived to be about 82 to 84 so yeah, 47 is actually more than half way there. Crap. I just bummed myself out.
Anyway... I had a dog as a child but I don't really count that. I mean, I was 14 when he died and he was really my dad's dog anyway. When I was 36 I moved in with a guy I had met on the internet. He lived in Alaska, we are now married and still live in Alaska. Lance, my husband, had a large mixed breed dog. That dog was the first dog I had lived with since I was 14.
Before this dog I had not disliked dogs at all, I had just always had cats, since it's considerably easier to rent an apartment with a cat than it is a dog. I became pretty fond of this dog of my husband's when the dog, at the age of 14 years, decided to take a walk, alone, in a snowstorm one night that he didn't survive.
After a few months my husband adopted another dog. Another large dog. I didn't (and still don't, really) know very much about how to handle dogs back then so this giant dog was a bit of a nightmare for me in many ways, but he was loveable and I grew to really adore him and had pretty much resigned myself to the Big Dog household when my husband emailed me an ad for a little Smooth Fox Terrier.
At this point I emailed back "sure, what the hell. I fell in love with the giant dog, surely I will grow to love this little dog as well."
And I did, but not before given a hardcore, sink-or-swim training in the world that is Terriers.
There is a lovely blog called "No Dogs for Old Men" that can explain far better than I ever can what living with a Smooth Foxie is like.
This SFT was named Libby and I grew to love her like no one and nothing I have loved before. Terriers, at least for me, have a way of wiggling their way into your heart and leaving an indelible paw print on it. Libby was a challenge and then some. She was 6 or 7 years old when we got her and pretty set in her ways. She was also exactly like the dogs in that blog above! Not a good "road dog", a digger, tenacious to the point of madness, an escape artist. I could go on and on about my beautiful Libby but this blog is about Lucy so I'll just say how until I met my husband I didn't know I was a dog person, much less a terrier person and my husband says it takes a "special kind of whack job" to be a terrier person.
I should clarify here and mention that the giant dog we got after "my first dog", the one that wandered out in the snow storm one night, also passed away. He passed in August of 2009, and my husband adopted ANOTHER large mixed breed boy dog in October of that year. This one lives with us and is Lucy's big brother, Ollie. Ollie did get to live with Libby for a while before Libby also grew old and passed away.
Here's a little photo of Ollie and Libby:
When Libby got sick and passed away my heart was utterly broken.
I just now sat here for 10 minutes thinking of what I could add to the sentence above and decided to let it be.
Libby died on January 4th 2011. Now here's where things get a little weird. On January 7th I was bored and read craigslist. Thing is, I NEVER read craigslist because as much as I love the internet and buy lots of shit there and got a husband from the internet, I have always assumed that craigslist is a bunch of scams. But it was on craigslist that I found an ad for a little Jack Russell Terrier girl that needed a new home.
That night I had a dream where we went to see the dog, and in the dream I asked the owners her name and they said "oh, her name is Lucy."
The next morning I decided what the hell, and called them. No one had adopted the dog yet so we went to meet her.
We get to the house and the couple open their bedroom door and out comes this little bolt of white lightning! She hurtles herself into my husband's arms before he even makes it to the top of the staircase he's climbing.
Right away I notice that she is absolutely the cutest dog I've ever seen. Mostly white with one brown ear and one freckled ear. She notices me looking her direction and flings herself fearlessly out of my husband's arms and rushes over to me.
I tried frantically to remember if I had absentmindedly rubbed bacon grease on my face that morning or something because the way she was going at my face you'd have thought I did for sure.
We're talking to the owners, asking about her shots, and health, behaviors (they lied, by the way, but more on that later) and reasons they were giving her up (they also lied about this...) and then I asked "oh, by the way, what's her name?"
"Her name is Lucy." said the woman.
It was pretty obvious that fate was playing some strange game with me at that point, so we took her home to meet Ollie and see how they would get along and if she'd like our house and our family.
This is Lucy 20 minutes after we got her to our house, "swimming" on the chenille bedspread:
Two hours later I called the people back and said "we're keeping her." I should have wondered at the time why her old owners didn't seem too upset to be losing her, but I was distracted by The Cutest Dog In The World coming to live at my house.
I was soon to learn that the "challenges" I had with Libby were like singing the Alphabet song compared to what Lucy would hit me with being like singing the Alphabet song, in Russian, backwards while on meth when you don't even speak Russian in the first place.
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