Jack Daniels

Beautiful gentle giant - Jack Daniels.

A dreadful day - my son's dog, Jack Daniels, went missing early Monday morning, and has now been found dead in the ditch - hit by a car.  Son is devastated of course, and we feel not only sad for Jack, but guilty we can't physically comfort our son - he's in England, we're in France.

Jack was a huge dog, both in size and in heart.  Loyal, with a sense of fun, he was half Rhodesian Ridgeback, half French hunting dog - and boy, could he hunt - once my chickens....  He stayed with us as a puppy while son worked away - my daughter wheeled him round the garden in her dolly's pushchair, Jack's paws getting bigger and bigger each day until they were almost as big as a human hand but still he squeezed himself into that pram.  He loved nothing better than loping around the woods near our home and splashing around in the local lakes.

Jack had a large fan following; everyone who met him loved him - even most of the old French ladies in our village, once they realised he was so gentle.  He  was a well-travelled dog, living in various areas in France, visiting Spain, and then moving to England with our son a couple of years ago - he was never happier than when he was in the car, window open, tongue lolling out in the wind - doing a canine laugh...   

He would tip-toe away at a moment's notice as soon as your back was turned, making short work of leaping over our bread oven wall - you'd dash to the gate yelling 'Jack, come back here at once' and he would be a brown streak in the distance - he might turn and grin at you, then dash off again, returning at 3am or something silly, banging or quietly gruffing at the door to be let in.

He used to lull you into a false sense of security - we always had him on a lead outside of course (then it would be him taking you for a walk) but more than once, he jumped out of the open window and was away..

Ultimately, Jack 'doing a runner' as we called it, led to his death - so very sad.


 Lovely Jack - he will be sadly missed by many but to our son, Jack was his 'boy'.