Mary L.: BIG JACK

Mary L. writes:

                There are so many stories about Big Jack: it’s hard to put them in any kind of order.  With Big Jack’s personality, you never knew just when he would produce another story out of a common, ordinary day.

                Even Jack’s arrival is a story in itself.  We had moved to Norwalk.  Our new home was on a good sized lot – about ¾ of an acre – and we were down to a single, not-so-very-healthy dog.  It was time to consider getting a second dog and my choice was the dog of my childhood, an Airedale Terrier.

                All we wanted was a dog to keep us company.  Not needing a dog with ambitions, I began watching the newspapers for an Airedale that needed a home.  It wasn’t too long before I saw an advertisement for an Airedale in the NY Times.  It was advertised by the New York Airedale Club but when I dialed the phone number, the woman said she did not have the dog; it was with its owner and she was just taking calls to interview people for a possible new home.

                I told her of my history with dogs and she was impressed enough to give me the owner’s phone number and asked me to call him and make arrangements to see the dog.  The owner was Scott Sommer, a name that didn’t mean anything to me.  He lived in NYC and needed a new home for his dog because he was continually traveling. The dog was spending more time in a boarding kennel than he was living at home.  Scott listened to my story and decided it was worth taking a chance on meeting me and giving me a look at his dog, Big Jack.

                A few days later, the two arrived at our house in an MG convertible with the top down, Scott driving and Big Jack sitting next to him, both dressed for turnpike travel with goggles and scarfs around their necks.  

                Scott explained that Jack was a special dog who needed an owner that would appreciate his wonderful character.  Jack was a NYC raised dog.  Nothing scared him and nothing was beyond exploring.  He was used to running free in Central Park, had flown to Puerto Rico for a photo shoot and had participated in other artistic involvements.

                I was interviewed about all my past dogs for several hours while Jack explored our property, a good portion of which was woods.  After the interview, Scott asked for a tour of our neighborhood and I took him to our local park.  We walked through the 900 acres of woods and fields and Jack was obviously delighted with the new surroundings.  Scott decided that this would be a good home for Jack.  Following a session of teary goodbyes, Scott left Jack with us for a trial period.  We never saw Scott Sommer again but I learned that he was an award-winning author of books and screenplays.

                So Jack, at age 3 ½, began his life with us.  Hardly a day went by when he didn’t manufacture some sort of story for me to tell my family and friends.

                Jack was not well groomed when he arrived at our house and I made that my first interaction with him.  He didn’t mind a bath and he enjoyed the attention of being groomed.  I had asked Scott if he had registration papers for the dog.  His reply was that he never took them from the breeder who lived outside of Boston.  He couldn’t remember the breeder’s name but he did remember that Jack’s parent’s names were Rocky and Eddy.  

                I had met an Airedale breeder at a match show several months before I got Jack and I phoned her to see if she could help me locate Jack’s breeder.  Ginny Saurwein had all kinds of Airedale pedigrees and show records; she invited me to her house to go through her library to see if we could figure out the name of the breeder.  It didn’t take too long to learn that Jack’s parents, Rocky and Eddy, were both show dogs who won awards at Montgomery, the biggest terrier show in the country, and that Bobbie Brennan who owned White Rose Kennel, near Boston, was the breeder.  With the pedigree information in hand, I contacted Bobbie and although it took about a year, I was able to register Jack with the AKC.  

                In the meantime, I had stripped Jack’s coat down so that he looked like a respectable Airedale.  He appeared to be a big Airedale even after I removed tons of hair.  He tipped the scale at about 70 pounds and was about 26 inches high at the withers.  But he looked well-proportioned and had a very nice terrier head.  It wasn’t too long before Ginny convinced me that I should take Jack to a professional handler to get an opinion on Jack’s conformation; Ginny thought Jack was possibly good enough to put into a dog show.

                When a dog show came to our area, Ginny and I took Jack along to find a terrier handler who would look at Jack.  Ginny introduced me to several handlers but they said Jack was too big for a show dog.  As we were leaving the show, Ginny found another handler, George Wright, who she also asked to look at Jack.  He was impressed.  George said that although Jack was big for an Airedale, the fact that he was big and had good conformation and a good head made him special.  “I could finish his championship, without a doubt,” George said.

                I gave George information about Jack’s past and said I really didn’t get Jack to be a show dog; I wasn’t convinced I wanted to do more than give him some obedience training but I took George’s phone number and said if I ever made up my mind to show Jack, I would contact him.

                Jack started obedience school at the age of four.  It was quickly obvious that Jack was a quick-learner both in learning commands and learning how not to obey them.  The problem was that Jack was strictly a man’s dog; he didn’t think he had to obey any woman unless he wanted to do as asked.  So I put Jack into a show handling class to see how he would do there.  I didn’t know much about showing a dog but the instructor said that Jack looked best when I just held the leash and let him put on the show, himself.  I guess Jack’s photo-shoot training was paying off.

                When Jack was 5 ½ years-old, we phone George Wright and told him that we were willing to give Jack a try at being a show dog.  George told us to bring him down to his kennel in New Jersey and he would groom him properly and see what Jack could do as it was just the beginning of prime show season in our area.  It took Jack just eleven shows over a period of about four months to win his championship.  George said he was a good show dog; he was a natural at knowing how to show himself to his advantage and his size made everyone notice him.

Before he began his show career, we had to register Jack with the AKC and chose a name befitting a show dog.  Having lived with Jack for over a year, I named him after an old Irish folk song, White Rose Jolly Beggarman, a name that also fitted his favorite pastime, eating.

                I felt it was important that I write something about Jack’s show career but that is only a small part of Jack’s story.  His everyday life with us was much more interesting.

                When Jack came to live with us, we had a daughter, Lori, who was in elementary school.  I was working full time but my mother would pick up Lori from school every day and stay with her until either Joe or I came home from work.

                Little did I know what my mother was doing with Jack when we were not at home.  For one thing, she would always take Jack along for a ride when she picked up Lori at school.  There were days when Lori wanted to play a while on the school playground before going home and my mother would oblige if she had spare time.  Of course, if Lori was on the playground, so was Jack.  All the neighborhood children got to know Jack for he was just another kid.  When they climbed up on the corkscrew slide, Jack took his turn with them.  When they played ball, Jack played the outfield and brought in any hit balls.  Jack was one of the gang.  

                We were completely unaware that any of this was happening until one day I was walking Jack around the block (about a mile’s walk).  A mother with a small child, I would guess about kindergarten age, was coming toward us on the street.  The child broke away from her mother and ran toward us yelling Jack’s name.  Her mother started screaming at the child not to go near the dog but the girl ran right up to Jack and gave him a big hug.  Jack just stood there wagging his tail and enjoying the attention.  I asked the girl, whom I had never seen, how she knew Jack’s name and she said that she often played with Jack at school.  Both I and the girl’s mother were dumfounded.  I had no idea Jack even went to school and the other woman had no idea her girl played with the dog.  But the little girl stood there petting Jack and telling us how Jack was so good at going down the slide

                Of course, I phoned my mother as soon as I got home to find out where else she was taking Jack and she said nonchalantly that Jack went wherever she went as he was good company.  I had to agree with her but I never expected Jack to impress a woman in her eighties who was all of 4’11” and could not control Jack on a leash if he wanted to misbehave.  But my mother insisted that Jack was a perfect dog and all the kids loved him.  I think my mother took him along with her because Jack gave her security.  I have no doubt that he would have given his life if danger threatened.

Jack insisted on having a long, daily walk and my husband, Joe, and I rotated at this chore.  Taking Jack for a walk was always interesting as he seemed to generate the interest of people along the way.  Home owners would take a time out from cutting grass or raking leaves to come over to say hello to Jack and give a pat or two. 

 One day, when I was walking Jack around the block, we came upon a big mastiff type of dog being walked by a man that didn’t appear quite sober.  He led his dog over to see Jack and it was obvious, right from the first moment, that the two dogs wouldn’t get along.  As we backed away with the thought of getting around the other pair, the mastiff leaped on Jack.  The encounter lasted only a few seconds.  Jack grabbed the big dog by his rear end; I believe he took a bite out of the big dog’s balls – in true terrier fashion – and with a scream the big dog laid down in defeat.  That was the first and only time I saw the true terrier side of Jack and I was amazed at how fast his temperament could change.  Immediately after that encounter, Jack settled back to his jolly old self.  But several neighbors had seen the fight and Jack became the hero of the neighborhood.  

I, myself, had to admit to taking Jack along when I did my weekend errands.  Jack always enjoyed riding in the front seat of the car and being a co-pilot I bought him a baseball hat, which he loved to wear, and when he sat in a parked car, people who were walking by often stopped to take a second look as what they thought was a person in the front seat, and turned out to be a big dog that looked like a person.  I can’t remember how many times I would come out of the grocery store only to find Jack in the company of other shoppers who stopped to say hello to him.  I had no need to worry; Jack would never leave his beloved car.

Jack was also a dog with an incessant appetite.  A few of his worst days were of his own making.  One day I came home from work to find Jack laying on the floor, breathing hard and unable to rise.  I quickly gave the house a once-over to see if I could find something Jack may have found and eaten but I couldn’t find anything suspicious.  It was after 5 o’clock but a quick call to the veterinarian found him just closing up his office. 

“I’ll wait for you if you bring him right over,” the vet said.  I enlisted the aid of my next door neighbor to help me carry Jack to the car.  No way Jack could walk.  Jack laid on the floor in the back seat for the 20-minute ride to the vet’s.  ‘His air tunnel seems to be obstructed,” was the vet’s conclusion and he made up some type of concoction to make Jack vomit.  With the vet prying down his throat with a long instrument and Jack giving the heaves, it took only a few seconds before the vet pulled out a corn cob, almost an entire cob.

“You really should watch where you put your food scraps,” the vet scolded.

“We haven’t had corn-on-the-cob in months,” I said.  I had no idea where Jack found the corn cob but what really mattered was the Jack was coming around and acting almost normal.  That was a real scare and the vet warned, “Jack may not be so lucky the next time.”

It didn’t take long for the “next time” to happen.  Once again, I arrived home from work to find Jack munching on a good sized plastic bottle.  It looked familiar; but I couldn’t imagine how Jack could have gotten that bottle.  The bottle was labeled “Fillabits”, a heartworm preventative medicine I had recently purchased. I had put the bottle on the window sill in back of the kitchen sink.  I had to do a long stretch to reach the bottle. If the bottle fell off the sill, it would have fallen into the sink.  How could Jack have found it?  Another urgent call to the vet, and another fast drive to his office.  I showed the vet what goodie Jack had stolen and he asked how many pills were there in the bottle?  “This is a new bottle, “ I told him.  “I just bought it last weekend so I hadn’t given Jack more than three of the 100 pills.”

The vet noted that the bottle was empty.  “Were there any pills on the floor?” he inquired.  “No,” I replied. “Jack had finished the contents and was starting to eat the bottle,.”

“Well, Jack is still alive and he doesn’t appear to be suffering. Take him home and give him some peroxide to make him vomit.  When he starts throwing up the pills, count them so we know how many you were able to relieve him of and how many are still inside.”

I imagine what the neighbors thought.  Here I was walking Jack around the backyard.  Every few minutes Jack would heave up another load of pills and I would get down on the ground to recover and count them.  We managed to recover about 65 pills; I had to estimate as some were in pieces.  The vet prescribed a medication to ease his stomach but Jack never showed any effect from eating the heartworm pills.

Another time I had pulled out of the pantry the ingredients necessary to make a pumpkin pie.  A large can of pumpkin pie mix, a can of evaporated milk and a small container of Cool Whip and two eggs from the refrigerator.  I looked in the freezer for a readymade pie shell and came up empty.  There was a neighborhood grocery store a half-mile down the road so I left the ingredients on the counter and made a fast trip to the store for the pie crust.  In ten minutes I was back home and found the counter bare.  “Jack !!”  I knew Jack had hit the jackpot again.  He came in from outside with a dirty nose and beard.  That was all the proof I needed.  Where did you put the food, Jack?”  He stood and looked at me and licked his chops.  I was furious. I was going to take back anything he hadn’t finished.  I was headed for the back door when I saw the remains of the pumpkin can and a crushed evaporated milk can in the middle of the living room carpet, right next to two broken egg shells and a split-open empty Cool Whip container.  Jack had mixed up a perfect pumpkin pie.  He obviously was very pleased with himself and no words from me were going to dampen his enjoyment.  Actually, there was very little to clean up.  Jack had done a very good job of putting all the food into his mouth and very little, just a bit of egg, was on the rug.

There is another example of Jack’s thievery I’d like to tell.  One afternoon my mother was watching my daughter and, at the same time, cooking a chicken for her own dinner in my oven.  Mom was just pulling the chicken out of the oven when the phone, which was within an arm’s length from the stove, rang. The caller was the mother of one of the children playing with Lori in the backyard.  My mother put down the phone and went out on the porch to call in the girl.  It was not more than 30 seconds until she returned to put the chicken on top of the stove.  Only there was no chicken.  

I became aware of the theft when my very angry mother phoned me at work and told me of the missing fowl.  “Someone had to come in the front door and carry off the chicken,” she said.  I just want you to know that I’m going to call the police and report a robbery.”  I knew how angry she was but I could hardly keep from laughing.  

“Mom, do you want the police to arrest Jack?”, I asked.  “Jack didn’t take the chicken.  There are no bones around the house and how could he have eaten a red-hot chicken right out of the oven?”

I had a hard time talking Mom out of calling the police and had to rely on my telling her that the police would have a good laugh at her for bringing them out to our house over a dog stealing a chicken and that was if they weren’t angry.  We never did find any remains of the chicken, not even any chicken grease except what was left in the pan.  And my mother never did believe that her beloved Jack would do something so bad and leave no bones lying around.  She was certain that a person had walked in the house and left with the chicken.  Jack had committed the perfect robbery. 

The last incident of terror was more my own doing than Jack’s.  During the 1990’s one of the most popular dog snacks were pig ears.  I bought a bag to see if Jack would like them; maybe they would keep him out of mischief.  I gave him a good-sized pig ear and he chewed it up in less than a minute.  

A couple of days later, I noticed that Jack’s neck was very swollen.  I couldn’t get a finger under his collar and the area above his collar was even more swollen.  Once again we wound up at the vets.  The vet had to cut off Jack’s collar and an exam showed he had an infected esophagus, probably caused by eating something that had badly scratched the inside of that organ.  I told him I had given Jack a pig’s ear a couple of days ago.  “That would do it,” the vet explained, “Jack probably didn’t chew it but tried to swallow it whole.”

Jack’s whole neck and his jawline became huge before the anti-biotic began to do its work.  It was nip and tuck for a few days and Jack was extremely uncomfortable and listless.  Finally, the swelling began to decrease and Jack had pulled through yet another food incident.  Needless to say, the remainder of the package of pig’s ears were discarded and well hidden in the garbage.

In spite of all his eating problems, Jack was unusually healthy and passed each yearly exam with flying colors.  We bred Jack to an Airedale bitch we purchased who was too small to show but had a true Airedale personality, a dog we named Bonnie.  Bonnie had a litter of eleven pups of which we kept two, Nellie and Duffy.  Jack fathered two other litters and became the father of several show champions.

Jack was a fixture of the neighborhood.  He loved his daily walks and was always eager to stop and visit with people.  Cars would often stop and people would inquire about Jack; it was difficult not to notice him.  He loved getting out and about; it was even better if my husband, Joe, was the walker.  Jack was so much more responsive to my husband.  If Jack was loose in the yard, I could stand and call, and call.  Maybe Jack would come to me but in his own time.  But my husband could come out and say “Jack?” without even raising his voice and immediately Jack would be at his side.  It was frustrating to me as I was the one who wanted an Airedale.

For the first year after we adopted Jack, Scott Sommer would write frequent letters asking about the dog and telling us how sorry he was to have to give up his friend.  The letters came from places like Key West and Hollywood and London and only occasionally from New York City.  I felt sorry for the man; it was obvious he had loved the dog.  Who could not love Big Jack?  Then the letters stopped.

I found out many years later when I looked up Scott Sommer on the internet that he had committed suicide about two years after he gave us Jack.  I remembered in his last letter he had written that he felt his family had let him down by not agreeing to adopt Jack so he could visit with him whenever he was in New York.

Jack lived a long, full life.  He loved to be in the spotlight so we showed him several times in the veteran dog show classes, which were for dogs over seven years of age.  His last few shows were at Montgomery, at the Airedale specialty show where his parents had had so much success.  I didn’t show Jack in those classes.  There were any number of men who wanted to take him around the ring.  To his last day, Jack was a man’s dog.  Jack won his last ribbon at a ripe old age of 13.

Several years before, I had showed him in a local Airedale specialty veteran’s class.  Not liking to be told what to do by a woman, he was hard for me to handle.  It was a rainy day and the grass was wet and slippery.  As we went around the ring together, Jack suddenly wanted to go right to greet a spectator and I wanted to turn left.  We collided and I fell over Jack.  Much embarrassed, I couldn’t stand up; I had blown my knee and ended the day in the hospital.  That was the last time I would try to show Jack myself.

Jack was a good natured dog who would go out of his way to greet people.  He would never have made a good watchdog but his size was enough to make anyone think twice about robbing our house.  Jack would have invited a robber into the house, especially if it was a man, but we didn’t want that fact to be known.  I’m sure the whole neighborhood knew that as a fact.

His last years were spent in the company of his pups, Nellie and Duffy.  Jack actually outlived Duffy and came close to outliving Nellie, too.  Jack was still in good physical condition when we noticed he was getting lost when moving around the house.  He would stop in a corner and bark; he didn’t know where he was.  If he went out in the back yard, he would stand still and wait to be led around.  He obviously didn’t know that he was outside or why he was put there.  His appetite was still good and he did not appear to be in any pain but we felt it was time for another visit to the veterinarian.  

The vet confirmed our fears; Jack was both deaf and blind.  He was also going senile in his old age.  It was time to say good-by to our friend; his quality of life had gone.  One month before his seventeenth birthday we said our last words to Jack and told him how much we loved him and how much we would miss him.

Jack was, to his last day, a dog nobody owned.  He was a very independent dog, his own “person,” who lived with humans but who lived his own life as he wanted to live it.

I had to admire him from afar.  He allowed me to feed him, walk him, care for him in any way but he was never “mine.”  He never gave his heart to me; never accepted me, only as a member of his pack. It was hard to get close to him like I could get to Nellie or other dogs yet to come. Joe was the only one Jack answered to and even that he did with limitations. While I was never exceptionally close to Jack – he wouldn’t allow attachment to a woman – I came to admire him as his own dog and missed him greatly after we said our goodbys.      

Yet, when he was gone, Jack left a big void in our house.  I wanted to announce his passing on the Airedale list on the internet and I couldn’t think of just what to say to remember him.  After a couple of days of thought I sat down and wrote:

He’s gone.  

Jack’s crossed the rainbow bridge, this plateau into darkness.

In his last few moments, he raised his weary head and his loving, trusting eyes said their goodby.

. . . 

He’s gone, I know not where,

I only know he left his memory

Embedded deeply in my heart

His image locked inside my mind.

He was the best of everything.

A few years after Jack left us, I read the book, Still Lives, that Scott Sommer had written about his life during the period when he owned Jack.  Jack was one of the featured characters in the book. I found it interesting to learn about Jack’s life before he came to live with us; it was exciting and it made me feel that he was probably bored living with us.  Maybe that is why he got into so much trouble.  Nevertheless, Jack’s personality grew on you; he was so friendly, and expressed his lust for living so well.