Jack Russell Terriers

We have the pleasure of being loved by 2 Jack Russell Terriers. Their names are Katie and Josh.

Josh

We bought Katie on New Years Day, 1998 as a present for my wonderful dog, Gwyn, who had just been diagnosed with cancer. The Shelties and he never got on and we thought he might enjoy the company of another terrier for his last days instead of being the odd one out all the time. He loved Katie and she did bring joy to the last five weeks of his short life. Then we decided that Katie shouldn't be an only terrier either and in August 1998, Josh joined our family. We thought we would get a 'proper' Jack Russell Terrier this time! Katie came from a farm where it was a case of one farmer having a boy JRT and the other having a girl JRT and the farmers deciding to have a litter and taking a pup each. I intended showing Josh, but he has an ear that refuses to sit right and also hasn't got the temperament for showing, much preferring to be home.

Maybe we're 'lucky' but they are both neat little guys, fairly quiet, fairly obedient, fairly smoochy, very intelligent and very easy care dogs. Yes, they are sensitive, and they love their clicker training sessions. But they also tend to get very selectively deaf when they see the cattle next door and they're off:-) They are also very non-destructive as far as toys, or anything else is concerned. But when very young they lived with 3 old Shelties whom they adored, and perhaps that has something to do with their basic niceness? They are still terriers though, and great little hunters. And they do like as much exercise as you can throw at them:-) Josh is the climber in the family and loves high places and has been giving me heart failure since we got him:-) He also loves to jump off the high places he gets to! Oh yes, he's an escape artist extraordinaire too, I was wishing we'd named him Houdini!! But it's only to be with us, never to get away from us, or to see what's on the other side of the fence! Josh and Katie are each other's best mate and it's really great to see the fun they have with each other, but they love me and John too, Josh is my boy and Katie is John's girl, they've chosen 'their' people. But it's not exclusive.

Jack Russell Terriers aren't the dog for everyone though. If you're thinking of getting one it will pay you to do plenty of research first. They can be stubborn, single minded, noisy, hunting mad, over active, obsessive, and probably a few other things that I can't think of off the top of my head. Which is why I suggest you check out some web sites which will tell you some of the potential pitfalls of owning a Jack Russell Terrier.

JRT's respond extremely well to positive reinforcement training methods such as clicker training. Josh knows quite a few tricks which he enjoys showing off:-)

We hope you will spend a few minutes admiring our 2 kids at home on their JRT Photo Gallery pages.