JACK
Paola Palomar
The Star Inn pub
30 x 45 cm
When my boyfriend Jamie called me to tell me he was getting a pet, I couldn’t believe it. I grew up always wanting a dog. At first, I was indecisive as a dog is a very big responsibility. I went to spend a few days with them in Woodstock after Jack arrived at Jamie’s house (I still lived in Spain at this point). Jack was the cutest puppy I had ever seen in my life and you could say it was love at first sight. We had such a beautiful connection, and he spent the whole time snuggled up to me. As Jack grew up, he developed a somewhat anti-social personality, both with humans and other dogs. He doesn’t like to interact much; we could say that he is shy, but I discovered after doing a little research that in dachshunds it is common. However, he is super affectionate and sensitive, very intelligent, loves to snuggle by your side or on top of you, share his toys and spend time with his brothers and mother.
Lockdown tails…
Lockdown was very hard for all of us and what had been normal before was never going to be normal again. We have had to create a new normal.
It seemed that so many of us received the bad news that a loved one had passed and that we couldn’t say goodbye to them; we couldn’t also hug our loved ones and I often felt sad but that’s when Jack was ready to give me a good lick and force me to go out for a walk, make me laugh and keep me company in every dark moment. Dogs are extraordinary beings and I wish they were eternal.
To be fair, Jack didn’t notice much of the change in lockdown. He was a little older than a year, still a baby, but we used to spend a lot of time together and obviously our relationship grew stronger and he learned many things like giving me his paw, which he now uses a lot as a blackmail in order to get a few treats. The change came later when Jamie and I started to work a lot; there were even days when we spent working all day. Bless him – Jack just lay down next to the stairs waiting for us, but you mustn’t think that he was very bored. He made the decision that he no longer liked the carpet we had, so in his spare time he spent making holes and ripping it out. I put patches on it, but he always managed to make the hole bigger. Maybe his hunter skills from his ancestors has come out. Who knows?
Paola Palomar