Jax' Story: Living on Land

Are you ready to hear my story?

My humans tell people that when I am left alone, “Jax is writing his memoirs.”  I don’t know anything about memoirs, but I do have a story to tell, and this is it.  

Is this not a handsome guy?

I was a young guy here.

My name is Jax.  I am a dog—fairly handsome if I do say so myself.  My mother was a Border Collie.  My father— who knows?  I never met him.  I was born far away from where I am now.  I kinda remember crawling over my brothers and sisters to get to my mother’s milk.   That’s what pups do.  But then I lost them.  I  don’t know how .  They disappeared one day and I was all alone.  

Children!  Grrrrrrr...

Some humans picked me up and brought me to some other humans with little children.  I didn’t stay there long.  The humans complained that I was herding their children.  Well, yeah!  I’m a herding dog.  And besides, small humans need herding.  They run this way and that—shrieking and—oh it’s just too much!  A guy’s gotta get ‘em to stay together!

Maybe he'll go away if I don't look at him?

Showing off my expert rolling skills.

Those humans dropped me off at a place with lots of dogs, and cats too.  Now those are some critters!  You can’t herd ‘em for nothin’!  They gave me a name there which I won’t repeat.  It lacked class.  Then one day, some other humans came to take me for a walk.  I showed off how high I could lift my leg and how I could roll around on the ground.  They must have been impressed because they took me home with them.  

Watching for my humans out the window.

There were no small humans at my new home.  So what was my job supposed to be?  It became clear that these humans needed watching.  One of them might go up the stairs to the third floor;  one might go down the stairs to the basement.  It was constant work to keep tabs on them both and I took my job very seriously.  I had to find the spot that was half way between them when they did that—it was the best I could do.  When I took my humans for walks, I discovered that squirrels were in need of my attention, too.  Grrrrr.  Bark!!  grrrrr….

Going under the aerial lift bridge.  The tourists stand over there and wave at me. 

My humans took me on a sailboat with them on a big lake they called “Superior” and the boat they called “SweetWater.”    They called me “Jax.”  It was a long jump from the cockpit down into the dinghy behind the boat.  The first time we did that, my humans put a harness on me with a rope attached and they lowered me….whoops, they dropped me into the water.  I don’t think they meant to, but you never know about humans.  The next time, I didn’t wait for them to drop me in the water.  I just jumped.  Some things a dog just does better by himself.  

Step 1:  Jump up.  Step 2:  Do my business.

There was a lot of snow at that big house on the lake.  Sometimes it was hard to find a place to—you know—do my business.  Most of the time it was fun romping and rolling around in the snow.  I have a lot of fur.  I hardly ever get cold at all.  Maybe my feet a little, and then the humans put small boots on me.  Weird.  I lose them as soon as I can.  

I made it outside before they put those silly red booties on me.  Whew  

There were lots of fun things to do when we lived there.  The humans skied and snowshoed.  We went to the beach when it was covered with ice.  In the summer we went fishing.  It was the life!  

I can carry huge sticks.  I'll swim if I HAVE to, to get them.

One year, the humans brought me to what they called “agility training.”  I’m already agile, but at that place, I got to show off what I could do;  I could jump up on things, ride a teeter totter, weave through posts, leap over and under things and run through a long tunnel.  The trouble started with the tunnel.  I could hear the other dogs racing through the tunnel—I just had to catch ‘em when they came out the other end.  I had to!  For some reason, nobody wanted me to do that.  Go figure. 

Deer.  Chased 'em away every day.  They always came back.

One day, my humans and I moved to a smaller house on a little lake.  My humans let me outside by myself whenever I wanted there, which was awesome!  Probably because the house was surrounded by deer.  Talk about critters that need herding!  I did my best to keep them out of our yard.  But they always came right back.  Deer are not the smartest animals on four legs.  Well, duh, of course…….that would be me and my bros.

That's me, worrying about what will happen next.  It was a time of turmoil in my dog life.  

I could tell something big was going to happen when the humans began to put just about everything in the house, into boxes.  Frankly, I was worried.  Were they going to go off somewhere and leave me behind?  Were they going to put me into one of those boxes?  I would have to hide if it came to that!  

I'm in the back seat.  This is MY seat.

But when everything was packed that could be packed, they called me to get into my seat in the car.  I was in that back seat in a flash!  I lay down fast in case they changed their minds. I hate being left behind.  Then we started driving, or rather, my humans drove.  I more or less supervised and watched the countryside fly by.