Courageous and Reckless | Jack Russell Terrier

If you can commit time and attention to a devoted, quick, intelligent companion, then the Jack Russell Terrier may fit into your life. You may find you are the dog’s pet. It is quite like having a child in that you must devote a great deal of attention to where the dog is and what he is doing any given moment. A Jack Russell is brave to the point of abandon, and you must prevent him from selfdestructing; more JRTs die from accidental deaths than from old age. If protected from themselves, they can live to be 20 years old. But you take on the job
as the human parent to this clever, sometimes devilish companion.

Jack Russells need patient, vigilant guidance whenever they are awake. In a split second they have been known to bolt out of a door and across a road. If they spot a chipmunk or a squirrel, no amount of calling will get them to stop. They never see the trucks coming—they only see the object of their attention. No amount of obedience training will ever guarantee this dog’s obedience. They have selective hearing and can completely ignore you. Heartbreak may be the result if you take chances.

It is always prudent to keep a Jack Russell on a leash in any situation where you could possibly lose control of the dog. Somehow they have such a spirit of adventure that their fearless nature compels many to make a bold leap into impending disaster without a split second of hesitation. There are many cases of Jack Russells leaping out of car windows at high speed. Heaven only knows why! I was on a lake one day when one of my own Jack Russell Terriers leaped out of the boat in the middle of the lake. He was rescued from the deep water with a fishing net. I do not know why my dog Cricketson jumped out of the boat. No way could that dog have swum to shore!

It is if Jack Russells are shooting stars with a brilliant light that shines through life, never looking back. They leave people who loved them in amazement and sorrow as they jump into danger’s gaping jaws without fear or hesitation. It is desperately hard for those of us who love them to know why this self-destructive element is so strong in them. But when they decide they want to pursue some course of action, they are willing to do just about anything. That is why we must protect them so vigilantly from themselves.

The Dog’s Senses

The dog’s eyes are designed so that he can see well in relative darkness, has excellent peripheral vision, and is very good at tracking moving objects, all skills that are important to a carnivore. Dogs also have good depth perception. Those advantages come at a price, though: Dogs are nearsighted and are slow to change the focus of their vision. It’s a myth that dogs are color-blind. However, while they can see some (but not all) colors, their eyes were designed to most clearly perceive subtle shades of gray, an advantage when they are hunting in low light.

Dogs have about six times fewer taste buds on their tongue than humans do. They can taste sweet, sour, bitter, and salty tastes, but with so few taste buds than we do, they are likely to try anything and usually do.
A dog’s ears can swivel independently, like radar dishes, to pick up sounds and pinpoint their location. Dogs can locate a sound in 6⁄100 of a second and hear sound four times farther away than we can (which is why there is no reason to yell at your dog).

They can also hear sounds at far higher pitches than we can. In their first few days of life, puppies primarily use their sense of touch to navigate their world. Whiskers on the face, above the eyes, and below the jaws are sensitive enough to detect changes in airflow. Dogs also have touch-sensitive nerve endings all over their bodies, including on their paws.


Smell may be a dog’s most remarkable sense. Dogs have about 220 million scent receptors in their nose, compared to about 5 million in humans, and a large part of the canine brain is devoted to interpreting scent. Not only can dogs smell scents that are very faint, but they can also accurately distinguish between those scents. In other words, when you smell a pot of spaghetti sauce cooking, your dog probably smells tomatoes and onions and garlic and oregano and whatever else is in the pot.