In the beginning

It all started when I was 22 and I knew everything. Well, I thought I knew everything. Until I turned 23; then I knew everything. Well, until I turned 24… Wait, this is about the beasts.

So at 22, I knew I was totally prepared for my first dog. When I found a picture of a Jack Russell Chihuahua mix on Petfinder.com, I thought she was the perfect dog for me.

I’d had Jack Russells my whole life, so I knew I could handle her. I knew.

I should pause here to explain something about my first two Jack Russells. When I was in third grade, we got a Jack puppy and named her Tippy. She was a delightful little mess that turned into a cranky old lady (due in no small part to the delightful little mess I was in the third grade) and we had high hopes of responsibly breeding her. She had high hopes of responsibly breeding herself. Two broken windows, several cardboard boxes and 6 litters of puppies later, we had ourselves a very spayed, very docile “Jack Russell.” I’m pretty sure the Jack Russell community would consider her a foreign dignitary.

My second Jack was a unique character. Okay, fine, she was neurotic. Katie had this thing about her butt. She didn’t really care if you were petting or scratching her ever. All she really wanted was to have her butt against you. Sometimes if I needed to scoot away for a quick second and didn’t want to disturb her, I’d just sneak something heavy against her butt, Indiana Jones style, and she’d never know the difference. She fell for stuff like that.

She also fell for four-wheelers.

I have the sneaking suspicion, however, that her spirit sort of passed from her body into a newly born puppy 1,000 miles away, a puppy I wouldn’t meet for five years…

So yeah, I thought I had a handle on that whole “Jack Russell” thing. Boy was I wrong.

Let me be clear: no amount of experience could have prepared me for life with Princess Puppy Butt. She is nothing like anything you’ll ever read in a book about Jack Russells or Chihuahuas or JackChis or ChiRussels or literally any other topic under the sun. She is her own brand of crazy.

And I love her.

(Although I'm not entirely convinced she was prepared for me either...)