Interesting Facts About the Jack Russell Terrier

I absolutely love my Jack Russell dog. His name is Bodie, although I really should have named him Pogo. Yes, they do jump a lot and high.

The need

One day I noticed that I was missing fish from one of my goldfish ponds. After standing still and observing....I saw it! A snake was happily swimming among the fish, eating them at it's leisure! Now, I do not have expensive or rare fish. I get them from the local bait shop in town because the hawks, owls and raccoons eat them sometimes. I just don't like snakes. Besides hawks, owls or raccoons do not come out of the water to sun themselves in the grass with the possibility of someone stepping on them! I did get the snake out of the pond. In the process I damaged the liner which cost extra money and caused a lot of unnecessary hard work to replace. That was the last straw! I had to have a solution. I needed a "hunter". We had an older Maltese dog that no longer spent much time outside or explored any distance around the house and I needed a new dog to keep the "vermin" at distance.

The search

The search was on! After checking the Internet sources for the characteristics of different breeds, I settled on a Jack Russell. Along the research path, I discovered there are actually two kinds of Russell's. One is Jack and the other is Parson. I even bought a book about Jack Russell's. The book was very informative and the author certainly had a "way with words". She said a Jack Russell has his own agenda - I found they really have tunnel vision with an unbending determination to do or get what they are focused upon. Once they are older, this determination channeled in the right direction is good! I searched the local papers and found a kennel in a neighboring town. There I found Bodie. He is a slick hair Jack. (The others look scruffy to me and in need of grooming.) He has two brown ears and eyes and one brown spot at the base of his tail. This is a true Jack Russell color. The breeder told me Bodie would be one of the larger dogs, averaging 18 to 20 pounds at maturity. That is important here - remember the hawks and owls? A very small dog would be "bait". Bodie was 10 weeks old and 7 pounds when we brought him home.