Always & Forever Mama's Jacky

I am so glad Jack is mine!  And so thankful Derek found him on eBay and insisted we go get him when my heart was hurting over having to return Roscoe to the shelter and I really didn't want to "replace" him the same day.  Jack has become such a friend and blessing!!  And it doesn't hurt that he has the cutest personality, and hence, lots of silly little stories...

Waiting on a treat with rapt attention in May 2014...

Jack is a lover!

Were there a pillow under his chin here, this is the view I wake up to pretty much each morning - his nose.  With his head stretched out along side mine and his hot breath in my eyeball is how we frequently welcome the day.  All night long we sleep with some part of him touching me but usually along toward morning he migrates toward the top of the bed almost like a guardian angel watching for me to wake up.  (His thoughts might be more like "Get up and feed me!" but I can always imagine right?)  Then as time moves on, Jack is the boy most likely to come rest his chin on either my lap or chest and gaze at me for loves and kisses.  Especially if they come with a little treat!  And if I'm sad, he's the first in line to lick away the tears and kiss it all better.  You really couldn't ask for a sweeter canine companion. I ask him sometimes just how they got so much sugar in one puppy...

Jack is my protector!

One afternoon there was a white cat wandering along the treeline out back.  All the boys saw it and starting barking their heads off... but Jacky was all set to protect me from this threatening intruder.  He was growling and down in his attack stance and all the hair along the ridge of his back was standing straight up!  For them to bark at birds, the occasional cottontail or even leaves moving in the breeze isn't unusual... but for my little man to get this worked up?  It got my attention.  I stood back and watched with some amusement as the cat nonchalantly made his way through the trees and up through the yard of one of the houses behind us perfectly unaware of the ruckus he (or maybe it's a she?) was causing.  Once the kitty was out of sight, the boys all settled down.  Poor Jack's back legs were shaking so hard I wondered for a minute how he stayed standing!  He was scared out of his mind but would have gone right to battle to keep me safe!!

Jack is a giant!

A sleepy Jacky... all that growing is tiring!

My baby, the last of the dogs to reach the birthday anniversary every year, will celebrate his fourth birthday in July.  He's been visibly "taller" than his bestest buddy, Lightning, since he was a year old and I was sure he would fill out some.  But just a couple of days ago, I wondered if he'd gotten taller still! Gizmo can walk underneath him without crouching down at all.  Line the three of them up side by side and it's like a staircase... Jack has the longest legs! But he still won't jump and has to be boosted into the back of the car.

Jack is a clown!

A rousing match of mouth wrestling is in progress.

The way my boys play can be a little unnerving to the uninitiated... I sort of like to call this shot "The Gaping Jaws of Hell." It's Lightning and Jack playing together - mouth wrestling. They never actually bite each other, just open their mouths wide and growl and make other unusual vocalizations as part of a full body contact wrestling match.  Even when they put their mouth over the other's head or neck or other reachable body part, their jaws never close and their body language, wagging tail and happy facial expressions, tells me they are having fun.  This isn't how Jack usually plays with Gizmo, though.  And that's much to Gizzy's dismay.  It's almost like Jacky recognizes that Giz is only half his size and he spends a lot more time down on his elbows or rolling around wrestling in a gentler way.

This is Jack shortly after we brought him home.  Lightning was so excited to have a new puppy and turned into the best big brother/babysitter... His face seemed to say "A puppy!!!  Thank you Mommy for getting me the greatest toy ever made!!"

Baby Jack... He still fit in my arms and on my lap!

And this is him just a couple of months ago...  Just like all Mommies, I'm asking "why must they grow up so fast?"

Big boy Jack... but still my baby!

I sure do love you, baby boy!!

Two Peas in a Pod

Lightning and Jack have become like peas in a pod... they act so similar to each other, play the same way, use the same vocalizations and will seek each other out for companionship.  The past few days I've been able to sneak up and snap a quick photo of them napping together and laying on the floor in the same positions just inside my living room.  This is their favorite hangout spot while I'm working in the kitchen or piddling around on the internet here at the table.

I love that even their paws are in the same position!

 These are the 2 that will click their teeth together at each other in the middle of a wrestling match.  Thunder and Gizmo take that as an aggressive act, but these two act like it's funny and do it toward each other all the time.  And their wrestling matches can stretch for hours with one on top and then the other as they roll and jump and twist and dive bomb each other.

Dos Amigos...

They are also the 2 who are most likely to lay their heads up over my legs to snuggle and nap for hours on either the couch or bed.  The other boys like attention until they are ready to sleep and then it's pretty much hands off.  But Lightning and Jacky... they like the physical contact with their human, me.

Lightning has been especially good at looking out for Jack since he was neutered on Tuesday.   They kept the play a little more gentle and let it escalate into their usual antics at Jack's pace.  It didn't take long.  He came home thirsty and very hungry but after getting his tummy full and a little more reassurance that we all still love him, he jumped right in!

He'll get his chance to console big brother soon enough.  Lightning is scheduled for a little snip snip of his own on Wednesday of this coming week.

Back to back this time, but still remarkably similar.

See that ring toy in the background?  Lightning finally learned to play tug with me using it.  He's the only one, so far, that will pick it up and pull against me when I hold the other end.  And then shake it mightily... sometimes so mightily that I think it's going to rip my arms out.  Yesterday and today, he's been teaching Jack to tug with him.

It's so fun to watch them together!

I love my boys!!

Mama's Boy

Jack is a mama's boy!

Actually, they all are... But it's my littlest one (for a few more months anyway) that makes it most clear, with all his 40 pounds, that he is mine.  Or I am his.  We are ours?  Well, something like that.

He has such tender little feelings.  All it takes for him to be convinced he's done something earth-shatteringly bad is to speak to him with a tone of impatience in your voice.  And to be 'bad' is like the end of life as we now know it!  Jack is surely my sensitive boy.

Sleepy sleepy Jack!

Last night was one of those nights when it was needful for me to have a break away from the boys so, after work, Derek took them downstairs to hang out and watch a football game he'd saved on the DVR while I holed up in the bedroom and watched a chick flick by myself.  It was a wonderful break!

About an hour in, there was a soft knock on the door.  It was Derek asking if I knew where the dogs were.  Smiling, I guessed they were sleeping in the hall.  And that's exactly where they were!  He laughed and said they'd been running down and nose bonking him and then disappearing back upstairs but he hadn't seen one for awhile and come looking because they'd got awfully quiet.  That usually means they've found something they shouldn't be doing to occupy themselves...  I laughed and told him he could let them in and all 4 climbed up on the bed and napped the rest of the way through the movie until Derek came back upstairs and asked if they needed to go potty.

All but Jack jumped right up to go.  When he sleeps he's out cold and it takes a bit of coaxing to get him up and moving again.  Derek got a little impatient and spoke with just a wee bit of harshness in his voice and that was enough to turn Jack into a cowering pile of puppy mush...  And when he finally got outside he didn't want to come back in past Derek and when they got past that hurdle he had another panic attack when he realized he'd be kind of cornered in the hall when Derek got there to open the bedroom door.  Needless to say, my poor baby was shaking and his face was creased with worry by the time he got back to me and crawled up in my arms.  He looked like he was carrying all the burdens of the world until I got him scooped up.  Then he was his normal happy wiggling self again!  He even gave Derek a slurpy wet puppy kiss.

It's a powerful feeling to be the mommy that can make everything right with your baby's world!

Blackjack, Second of His Name

Realizing that I've mentioned it but never actually properly introduced the newest member of our family...  how about we fix that?  Meet Blackjack!

Jack for short.

Jack and a few toys (in varying stages of being shredded).

Or sometimes Jacky.  Or Jackjack.  And he's Jack-a-Lacka-Wing-Wong (in a goofy sort of sing-song voice) when I'm being silly...

He's a black and tan Doberman Pinscher who was being sold at bargain basement clearance price on eBay.  The breeder was ready to breed another of their dogs and needed the pen where this little guy was living.   He was the last puppy left from a previous litter and he had to go.  So they cut his price in half and put his picture on eBay where Derek found it and as they say, the rest is history.

Our little Jack is a name-sake for the dog Derek's family had when he was a child, another large black and tan Doberman.  And though his sister says we 'have to' get his ears done to keep the name, I think it's stuck on him by now.  With the floppy ears she says he looks like a hound... and she sings Elvis to him:  "You ain't nuttin' but a hound dawg!"

Jack is a good-natured little guy who loves to cuddle and kiss.  Kisses can be a dangerous proposition, though.  He still isn't convinced that teeth are not a part of kissing.

We feel pretty lucky to have him since he's such a perfect fit personality-wise with our other boys.  He jumps in and plays along with them, and fights his way to the front of the treats line, like he doesn't realize he's only about 1/3 their size yet.  Just give him a few months and he'll catch up.

And just like the others, he will eat anything I give him!  ANYTHING!!  Bananas, peanut butter and pumpkin puree are the currently favored treats. Somehow to me that stuff doesn't sound very dog-like but the drool streaming out their mouths would convince you they find it to be pretty darned tasty bites.

He sounds like a mooing cow when he moans in his sleep!  He's outgrown it now, but Lightning did that as a baby and I L.O.V.E.D. it so much!  So that Jack does it, too... well, it just melts my heart.

Today, Jack discovered that he fits into places the bigger dogs don't anymore.  He crawled under the futon downstairs and started nipping at feet as Thunder and Lightning and Gizmo would dart up to play with him.  One time he caught Thunder's back foot and so he stepped up onto the futon and then Jack nipped his opposite front foot and he put it up on the ottoman... with the next nip, Thunder shot straight up in the air and straddled the space in between the futon and ottoman.  It was so funny!!

We met Jack's parents when we picked him up and estimate he's going to be another huge dog based on their sizes.  And researching some other stuff Derek uncovered an interesting factoid about these very large Dobermans that neither of us knew before.  When a male's weight exceeds 100 pounds, he's referred to as a Warlock.  These Warlocks came into being in the 1970's in Europe when Dobermans' were just coming into fashion as guard dogs and there wasn't enough breeding stock to meet the demand for puppies.  Some were bred with Great Danes... and today's big boys are a throwback to those Dobie/Dane bloodlines.