This is Jaque

I know most authors don't invite you into their private lives but, I'm not like most authors out there, in case you haven't noticed. So, I've decided that over the several months, I'll introduce you to our kids, and yes, they are our kids.

I'd like to start with Jaque, our Yellow Lab. Jaque is the only animal that came to us...really.

One Saturday morning, a few years back, Jen and I were leaving the house to go run errands, like we typically do on a Saturday. I openned the garage door to find a big, very smelly and very dirty dog sitting on our front porch. We canvassed the neighborhood, trying to find his owner and came up blank. No one had ever seen or heard about him, and if they had, they weren't saying.

As it so happens, one of our neighbors offered to take this loveable, dirty, smelly walking dirt bag home with him. He said and I quote, "I'll take good care of him (I had no doubt about that) and I have a six foot fence, he can't get out."

Never having owned dogs before, I agreed and the two of them happily trotted down the street to Jaques new home. Situation resolved, we went on our way to run our errands.

A few hours later, we returned to find the Jaque comfortably sleeping on our front porch. We had heard that Labs are diggers and assumed that he got out of our neighbors yard. So, we gathered up Jaque and back he went to our neighbors house and his "new home".

Again, situation resolved, we ran out.
We were half way down our street, returning home, when our neighbor stopped us with bad news. Apparently, Jaque had run away again. Our neighbor had spent hours looking for the dog, with no luck. Maybe, the neighbor said, he knows where he belongs and went home.

I'll buy that. We pulled into the garage, unloaded the shopping bags, and Jen went out to water the plants. She wasn't out there more than a minute when she stuck her head back inside and told me to come out front and be quite. She pointed under the large Sage bush we have and there was Jaque, happily snoring away, waiting for us to return home.

We have tortured this poor dog in every way possible. We gave him a bath, took him to the vets, got his shots and had him chipped. We even had him neutered and to this day, he hasn't gotten out of our little three foot fence of which, he knows how to open the gate. As for the digging, yeah, he made trench diggers look like amateurs. No joke. Thankfully, he has grown out of his puppy stage. The digging, the chewing and the mischievious stuff has stopped. We don't lose shoes anymore and our cats love him.

Very recently, Jaque had 3 grand mal seizures. It scared the hell out of us and I'm still a little afraid to leave him alone. We've been working with our vet trying to figure out why he suddenly started having seizures. He'll start anti-seizure medication soon, just in case and I'll finally be able to get a good nights sleep again.

Truth is, we'll do whatever it takes to make sure he is happy and healthy.

I guess he knew where he belonged.