New Dog at the House

This is the new dog that has just arrived home. Her name is Spice, and she came from Char Smith of Thornbush Working Jack Russell Terriers who, very kindly, drove all the way down from Illinois to meet me in Ohio. I feel very lucky to get this dog, and consider it an act of kindness from Char to have offered her to me.

We picked a random bakery and coffee shop in Perrysburg to meet in, and it turned out to be a great little place with fresh pies and muffins and a very active clientele that consisted mostly of active senior citizens. For a blind toss, we did well.

Char and I hung out for about 4 hours, eating, talking, and just goofing off. When we let the dogs go out to pee, they came within a hair's breath of nailing a rat that was housed in a small bush in a parking lot about a hundred yards from the bakery. Nailing a rat at the hand-off of a working dog would be about perfect.

For the record, the building in the picture, above, is not my house -- it's a building at Oberlin College, where I stopped off on the way back. More about that later.

The wife met me at a local fenced tennis court so the dogs could be introduced to each other on neutral ground. Mountain quickly asserted dominance with two low growls, and the new dog accepted her Omega status immediately. All good, and as planned. I made a big fuss over Mountain and ignored the new dog. Then I fed them both, making sure Mountain was fed first and that she got the most. Both dogs are now playing on the rug behind me as I type, so things appear to be going swimmingly. Was all this necessary? Perhaps not, but first impressions are important, and that is true in the dog world as well as ours. There was going to be a pack order, and the quicker that was sorted out and recognized by me, the better.

Visually, Mountain and Spice make quite a pair, each with one patch eye and bright white bodies. They are a matched set, with Spice about a 1/2 or 3/4 of an inch smaller than Mountain -- a situation that will remain forever, as Spice will be one year old in just 10 days.

The new dog is about a half inch taller than the late great Sailor, but truthfully Sailor was very small, and on cold foxing days and in the staggering heat I sometimes wished for a dog that had just little bit more mass.

The new dog has a true harsh broken coat that should do well in cold and heat. The new pup is also longer in the back than Sailor and is well-furred all over -- a trait Sailor could not claim. I have not measured the new dog's chest yet (no tape meaure in the truck), but when I touch my thumbs under her chest, my fingers interlace over the top well past the second joint, so my guess is that she has a span of a little less than 14 inches.

It is exciting to have a new dog in the house. I will spend the next two weeks assimilating her into the house, the family, and the routine. First stop tomorrow morning is the yard!