Katherine Messenger.docVIP

Katherine Messenger 　　One August afternoon in 1999， my parents and I drove to a farm in Leesburg， Virginia， to look at a litter1） of Jack Russell Terrier2） puppies we’d seen advertised. As soon as we arrived at the breeder’s house， we were confronted by Bunny， the long-legged mother of the pups. She was jumping in place3）， and for the entire time we visited， she never stopped jumping， up to three feet in the air. We should have known what we were in for4）. 　　The puppy we chose held her white-tipped tail high and posed as if on camera， while her brothers and sisters lolled5） about. As the breeder noted， she favored her glamorous show-dog grandmother. And when she looked at me， she turned her head intelligently， pricking up her ears so that they formed perfect triangles. We named her Daisy， because she was delicate and cheerful like the flower. It didn’t last. 　　As soon as coordination set in， she proved so energetic as to be aggressive. Running in loops in the backyard was a common activity when nobody would play. Head-butting6） beach balls also amused her， and she relished getting wet—in the wading pool outside， and in her water bowl inside. We strove to confine her to the kitchen， but she defeated our ever-sturdier gates—shimmying7） under them， leaping over them， or， in her preferred method， simply bashing8） them to the ground with a whole-body slam—then zipped upstairs to stomp on our bed pillows in victory. 　　Hoping to tame Daisy Do-Wrong， we enrolled her in obedience school. She easily learned to “sit，” “roll over，” and “dance” but refused to perform a trick without a treat—or to do more than one trick at a time. Once， when the owners’ attention was on the instructor after we’d supposedly gotten our dogs to “heel，” Daisy slipped out of her collar， charged across the room， and tackled a Bichon9）. No diploma from Old Dominion University for Dogs ever adorned the Eastland family manse10）. 　　The vet told us Daisy acted out because she needed more “entertainment