The terrier was not exactly bred to follow your instructions. While some kinds of dogs historically worked in tandem with people in order to accomplish a goal, terriers were perfected to do their pest-control duties 24/7 with no help (or advice) from us. So your dog is not likely to be the biddable little girl you might have imagined, though that doesn’t mean she is untrainable. She is smart, cunning, and perceptive. She will learn anything new very quickly. And she will unlearn it the very next day when conditions change and she finds a loophole you didn’t count on.

If you send her off to boarding school, she will probably learn how to behave well for the teacher, and then return to her original patterns of behavior as soon as she gets home. There is no way around this fact: You will have to treat every single moment as a learning moment. You need to stay one step ahead of her. She is the class clown, capable of turning the room into a circus in an instant. Your leverage is to be the fun—to be the condition on which every exciting thing happens—and you’ll have to hang up the idea that she will respond to the notion of “because I said so.” Sew up the loopholes so she can’t get around you to get the stuff she wants, and then require cooperation and adherence to certain rules in order for her to gain access to the party.

Lifestyle

Your terrier’s ideal environment is one in which she is close to you, but free to be her own dog, driven daily by opportunities to intensely engage with her surroundings. She is not an idle dog, but can accommodate any number of environments and living situations as long as she is afforded ample occasions for the expression of her character.

HOME LIFE—At home she is a lively and often exhausting pet, but a manageable one. She doesn’t mind the indoors or periods of confinement, and her generally smaller size makes it easy for her to find smaller quarters (such as your urban condo) agreeable. She can handle your modern schedule as long as you give her lots of amazing outlets for her playful and mischievous instincts, as well as time for adventures and games (lest she dig to China in your flower bed for entertainment).

Jack Russell Terrier