[PhoenixAzul]

I trained my parent's dog, a BorderJack (border collie/jack russell mix). She's really cute, very sweet, small, and easy to train. Not terribly bright though. She loves to herd, so she regularly just chills on the back patio while my dad putters in his garage. Well one day, a little herd of squirrels decided to parade around the patio. Shadow gets up, goes over, and sniffs. All but one of the squirrels run away. It's down to the dog and the one lone ranger. She's just standing their swishing her tail and staring at the thing, it's staring back. Squirrel takes three hops. Shadow takes three hops. Squirrel swishes tail, Shadow swishes tail. So she reaches down and puts it in her mouth. And then just stands there. And the squirrel is still alive, but is stunned, so it lets out this squeak and that squeak sort of terrified Shadow, so she drops it. Squirrel runs away, and Shadow runs over to my dad and hides behind his legs. Ninny.

Before we adopted our new friend (pure Jack Russell), he was a stray. And what do JR's do? Chase vermin. And what falls in that category? Skunk. Ugh, he was such a little stinker when we brought him home and we couldn't bathe him because he had just had his *ahem* surgery. He had a visit to the groomer so his coat is under control and the smell is kinda gone...but when he gets wet, there's still a little eau de skunk.