Family - on “not jack” the dog

Three months ago, my daughter performed a mission of mercy. We noticed a dog walking around the block and I was immediately pelted with pleas from my kid to ‘save him’. After just a little coaxing, we got this dog into our back yard with our two dogs which I thought was going to be our biggest problem. I suppose this would fall under the category of things you hear other dads talk about and don’t understand until it happens to you.

I made my daughter stay inside while I was getting my camera for some lost dog photos and the entire time, her nose was pressed against the glass watching him. Smiling and quietly congratulating myself on creating such a wonderful teaching situation, I returned to the door to be informed by my kid that the other dogs are being nice to “jack”.

I was stunned for just a moment until I realized who she must be talking about. At that point, my confusion turned to fear and I unconsciously switched into damage control mode. My very firm reminder that we would under no circumstances be keeping this dog seemed to fall on deaf ears as my kid giggled about him playing with our dogs.

The very next time she mentioned something about Jack, I explained very calmly that we would not be naming him since we wouldn’t be keeping him. She inquired quite logically what we would call him while he was here to which I replied “not jack”.

Fast forward 3 months, 43 craigslist posts and approximately 25 posters later to now. Not Jack somehow was given a tag with just plain Jack and I now have 3 dogs too many.

I can’t believe the power of subtlety and how quickly it all happened. Oh well, at least he looks happy.