Jack
CH Tesouro's BlackJack at Yr Svc CD, RN, NAJ, CWD, SROM Service Dog Guide
05/23/2002 - 06/28/2017
I love this dog beyond all reason. A dog who loved to work no matter the job, he introduced me into the world of dogs. We learned the ropes together from Guiding Service Dog training/work to PWDCA Water Work and all of the other venues. He was my Jack of all trades (Master of Guide work). While he isn't in the pedigree of Allyn Portuguese Water Dogs, he is the foundation.
My first guide and my first PWD, I say Jack gave me a life back because that's exactly what he did. A very busy puppy with 2 speeds (dead run or dead asleep), he helped fill up my days with training, play and companionship. I made all kinds of rookie mistakes with Jack but he was very forgiving and we overcame almost all of them (barking orders at me and others - generally "THROW THE BALL/MONKEYPAW" and "Stay right there while I go get the float line on shore. Don't move or I'm not leaving the water" - were always a work in progress) and he was always so professional when working. I kept planning to retire him but he was never ready and then he lost his hearing and we couldn't tell him he had retired. He continued his hobby of relentless retrieving until well after his 14th birthday and although he slept more, he was still on the move most of his waking hours. He did tricks (with only hand signals because he couldn't hear the cues anymore) the month before his 15th birthday to qualify for AKC TKN and TKI titles.
He took me so many places: meetings; Dr appointments; conferences; the train to DC (there were a lot of delays and it ended up taking over 13 hours, he refused to potty the whole time) - wherever I needed or wanted to go, he was more than happy to take me. And everyone was always happy to see him. The staff at Drs offices would line up for him to take a break and greet them after my appointment (he'd ignore them until he was given the cue to go "on break'). Even when an ill mannered dog on the street was allowed by its owner to jump into Jack's face and bite his tongue, he just turned his head away and continued to do his job. As with most things, he took it a lot better than I.
Because I like to do such things, I've calculated estimates of how many retrieves he's done in his lifetime at several different points in his life. The most recent (pretty conservative) estimate is over 1.6 Million (I can show the calculations and provide witnesses if there are any doubts). If he wasn't doing another job, he was retrieving. He found it innately rewarding (and I possibly rewarded it a little too heavily but it worked for us) - so rewarding that if I tried to pay him for retrieving with food, he acted as if taking the food was the behavior and I should throw the item again as his reward. He really only stopped in the last 8 months but he still moved around a lot during his waking hours.
Almost 15 years together was not nearly long enough. Susan Jill Smith posted this elsewhere and gave permission for it to be shared:
"When I was in my early 20's I dated a physics professor who was also a dog lover. He was always doing math equations to make sense of time and how it affects us all. At the end of his dogs life.. he had determined through his math that if his dog Shadow had been a human - Shadow would have been 80 years old - at the time of his passing. For the Professor... it didn't help that Shadow only lived for 13 years. Until.... he suddenly realized... 'I have loved Shadow for all these 13 years with all my heart.. .but you know what ? Shadow has loved me for 80 years'. And he smiled.... 'Shadow has loved me longer than I have been alive'. It's all relative you know. Dog love feels longer - because it is. "
So I have loved Jack for nearly 15 years but he has loved me for almost 100 - longer than I've been alive. RIP my sunshine.
