The Dog with Two Lives

He was the only puppy in the litter to walk straight up to us. “Could you please get me out of here?” It was easy to understand why he wanted to leave. A few feet away in an outside pen, his long-legged dad was leaping up and down, barking frantically. His short-legged mum was racing around the perimeter of her enclosure like a rabid squirrel. And loud traffic was providing the not-so-background noise for his seven canine siblings, as they ran amok on the lawn like directionally-challenged mice. The weanlings were excited, and a little scared, to be out of the shed where they’d been living since their birth eight weeks ago. But this pup had a handle on things. He knew we intended to take a dog home with us and was Determined It Be Him. However, his coat was—to put it politely—unconventional for a Jack. This was in the days before the breed name was changed to ‘Parson Russell.’ American Kennel Club standards require predominantly white coloring. They don’t accept a mostly black back, or a black face, brown eyebrows, and splashes of brown and white on the snout. The pup’s throat, chest, and legs were the only acceptably white parts. But we didn’t care. My husband and I had come to find a pet, not a show dog. Since his dad was wire-haired and his mum had a smooth coat—not to mention the difference in their leg lengths—we asked the breeder what this puppy would look like when he grew up. His coat was currently soft and smooth. “You never know with Jacks,” he told us. “You can have two short-legged parents with smooth hair, and they’ll produce long legs and a rough coat in some of their babies. Puppies can start out with a smooth coat yet be rough coated when they get older.” In other words, who the heck knew what this little chap would morph into? Meanwhile he had followed us over to the breeder, and was looking up hopefully during this conversation. “I promise I’ll be a terrific dog, no matter what I look like!” While I struggled to ignore that cute face, my husband declared, “We need to think about it.”