Jack Russell City

I’d already noticed this on the past couple of trips to Paris, but the trend is now unmistakable: Parisians have entered a Jack Russell terrier phase. Every third dog owner seems to have one here.

It’s hard not to be fond of them. For 14 years, my parents had a closely related English fox terrier (Newcastle seemed to be swarming with them the one time I was there), and it was a great if challenging experience to interact with such a dog. As puppies they can be impossible (ours bit the phone cord in half because he felt ignored by the person on the phone). They are emotionally complicated to the point of neurosis. But they are also extremely intelligent and highly responsive to language, and generally each one has a few bizarre eccentricities (ours liked to bury fortune cookies in the yard, for instance).