All About Jake

Jake the little man with a big personality.

He was born by Cesarean (which amused me when he came and his pack leader is called Caesar) , the Vets scalpel slipped during the operation and little Jake was blinded in one eye. He hasn't let it deter him in life one iota! When he has his image taken, his blind eye often shows up as it has in this picture, a horrid glare or sometimes just a lifeless black colour, it doesn't show up in his life like that, just if I take his picture. As I never use a flash it is disconcerting at times.

All of the pictures I have of Jake stem from the day he came home to live with us. Sadly his Mum and his human sisters were moving to new homes and the landlords 'no dogs' clause was not negotiable. All three of his 'old' family have remained in touch to find out how he is, if he is happy and it is fair to say that he mourned them deeply once they had left his physical world.
For three days, he sat at the top of the stairs watching the front entrance down a steep set of stairs which, he was afraid to run down. Jake's loss of one eye, means he cannot judge depth and as a result he is afraid of steps, slanted or very steep ground, it must , I suppose, appear oddly to his perceptions and causes him to hesitate.
It took me many weeks of encouragement and sitting beside him, one step at a time before he would run up or down steps with any confidence. These days he zooms around like a whirligig but in those days, 3 years ago, that wasn't the case.
I lost count of how many times I would pick him up and encourage him, me sat there, him trying to get his little legs over the top of the step without stumbling...but we did do it.

He is very fond of sleeping under a duvet and likes to wriggle around until he has his favourite spot, curled up behind me, tucked into the curve of my knees or stretched out along my spine if he can get away with it. His pack mate prefers his head on the pillow and being cuddled, Jake is far more independent.
He is also destructive of any package wrapped in Christmas Paper, they are ALL his presents as far as he is concerned...and no, the one in the picture was actually mine :)

Jake hated water when I first got him. he had never been to the seaside, never experienced the joys of body surfing down a sand dune and didn't have any life experiences to measure the freedoms of running helter skelter along a seas edge with wet paws, sunshine blazing and not a soul for miles. 
His eventual delight knew no boundaries. He threw himself into the experience with great enthusiasm and eventually became confident enough to skip along the sands all by himself, go rock pool snuffling, he even took on his first huge crab with amazed but definitely delighted challenge.

But for Jake, it is always going to be the forest that claims his heart. he adores rabbit holes and would dive down one in a heart beat if I allowed him, he was and remains still, a superb Ratter. I don't like animals being killed, it isn't 'were I am at' but a dogs nature is very different, they can be predatory and a terrier in particular, has an ancestry of hundreds of years of being the hunter. keeping the home and the yard free of vermin. Of course he doesn't need to kill anymore than I do, but he remains a great tracker.

His love of the forest and his tracking abilities have on occasion led me deep into dark places and discovered baby fawns,foxes at play, even a Buzzard who had decided to land for lunch on a small rabbit. He is however so fast, that if a nest or a burrow is within his jaws he will kill, and eat what he has caught. We have had a few words over this in the past.....he remains unrepentant.

He is totally anti social, quite capable of throwing himself down any dogs throat and .............choking them to death. Which makes him a horror at times, he definitely has 'small dog syndrome'...and yet, with humans, he is totally adorable. Loves attention, would literally die for you. He is a complex sort of character my Jake. He loves people, he loves children more than adults and where babies are concerned you must never raise your voice or look threatening because he won't think, he will run between you and the baby constantly 'running interferance' and barking until you shut up.

I love this 'little man', he is not only my friend, he is one of the best watch dogs I have ever had. He will howl, growl and leap to my defence in a flash and all he wants from me, food and a few treats and the occasional share with my duvet.

The greatest moment and one captured perfectly in this picture was the day I finally was able to let him run off his lead. He SKIPPED I swear he did. His joy in the freedom so seldom available to him (for his own protection) knew absolutely no bounds. He ran, he rolled, he dove into water for the first time, ran off into the sand dunes (an hour to find the little devil!) and he finally came running to me...his first ever acknowledgement I was his pack leader, his mum. wonderful moment for us both.

This picture is my most favourite of all, skipping with freedom and no sign of his age.

Sadly Jake isn't young anymore, he has arthritis and he suffers from epilepsy. It is triggered by anything chemical which means it is difficult to find preventative treatments for fleas or ticks for him. I use pure olive oil to smother the horrid things, then a comb through with conditioner and finally a decent bath with lots of conditioner afterwards. The result is a magnificent flea free coat.
If we are by the sea, his daily bouts of sea bathing keep any fleas or ticks off him too which is a bonus of the effects alongside his excellent muscular health.
I love this little dog with all my heart.

After a recent bout of fits I managed to sort him out and he is 'all better now' the image was produced to give his many loveing humans the news he was back on track. The most up to date image, taken two weeks ago in September 2015, my little man, my Jake, healthy, having a good go at living.....my friend.