more Jack Russell City

I noted this here 16 months ago, and it remans true today: Jack Russell terriers still seem to be officially cool in Paris. I’d go so far as to say that over half the dogs I’ve seen on the street this week have been Jack Russells.

For years my parents had the larger cousin, an English fox terrier. They are remarkable animals. It’s hard to find a smarter breed of dog, capable of a wide range of emotional responses and a hugely differentiated vocabulary (at times they almost seem to understand the grammatical position of words in sentences, and can definitely figure out what words you’re spelling if you try to spell something so that they can’t hear it).

The downsides are perhaps two in number. First, they are more or less crazy until age 4. Second, they have a lifelong emotional complexity that easily crosses the line into outright neurosis. You definitely need to include them in family activities as much as possible.

I’m speaking here about English fox terriers. I’ve not had enough first-hand experience with Jack Russells, though my sense is that they are more hyper but also a bit happier than their larger cousins.