I would like to tell you a little story about our cute little Jack Russell princess Jonna. Everyone who sees her immediately takes her to their hearts, because she really looks good enough to eat and her little tail always stands up like an antenna and can't get out of wagging. Very rarely the tail hangs down, mostly when I scold her, because that has to happen sometimes. Lucky, our street dog from Romania, who looks just as cute as she does, just a little bit mangier, loves to hold her tail while they are playing in the garden. But that's just by the way.

We also have two equally sweet cats: Jacky, 1 year old and a super mouse hunter and since about two months Garfield, a male cat. Lucky is very fond of Garfield and they get along really well. Jonna loves the cats too, but in a different way. She would like to kill them! Because cats are prey animals! And you hunt them! Everybody knows that! Unfortunately, it didn't help to name the first cat Jacky. But as I said, that's all just a little bit of added vegetable to the story and I'll get to the point soon.

In any case, Jonna is a real hunter, which is what this breed was bred for. And I also try to keep her busy with nose work, but she enjoys hunting more. And yes, please dear dog trainers and dog experts, I know what I have let myself in for and I don't want to moan about it at all. Nevertheless, if anyone has any tips on how to turn our Jonna into a cat lover, please feel free to get in touch.

There! But now to the story. I was recently invited to my neighbour Tehres for coffee in the evening and because she has two dogs - Boston, a big black Labrador mongrel and Ozzy, an Australian Sheperd - and two really big tomcats - Nisse and Pissi - who are actually almost bigger than our Jonna, she said: "Why don't you take Jonna with you, then she can "make friends" with the tomcats? Because they are big, are used to big dogs and will show the little one how to behave. It's good training for her." Okej, I thought, and at the same time told her that I would leave her on a leash though. So we drove there, I took my little muscular lady out of the car, leashed her and we entered the Tehres' house. Her two dogs were already at the door and greeted Jonna effusively, although the Boston was probably a bit too enthusiastic and she immediately put him down. Small but mighty. Don't mess with Jonna. Because she knows exactly what she wants and what she doesn't want. So I sat down, Jonna on the leash next to me. Nisse and Pissi were in the living room watching my Jonna, bored and sleepy. In the meantime, Ozzy and Boston had gone to lie down and my sweetheart took the scent directly. Her little nose stretched into the air and she sniffed and sniffed like there was no tomorrow. It definitely smelled like CATS in here! Tehres told me to let her off the leash, that it was no problem. I didn't want to! But I let myself be persuaded and thought, okej, nothing can happen. After all, she can't get up the cat tree, where the tomcats could easily escape.

I know it's almost unbearable for dog trainers now, so maybe better stop reading here.

So I let go of the leash, say to her: Bra...... (actually I wanted to say: be good) and BANG! she shoots off in the direction of the living room. Then I just hear a clatter. Cats fly through the air, something white flies between my legs, we chase it into the living room, Jonna on the sofa, cats on the cat tree and from the sofa, my kamikaze sails elegantly through the living room, past the TV and takes a sinfully expensive Ming vase with it, which crashes against the wall and shatters into a thousand pieces. Okej, I know I should have kept calm, but my pulse was so high it already felt like the line on the heart apparatus that confirms cardiac death. I shouted STOP and NO and HERE and PFUI! We tried to cut her off but she was quick as a greyhound. Back in the dining room, I just saw her dash through the cat door that led to the cellar. Tehres very calmly: "That's no problem, down there in the cellar she can at most chase mice and that's good." You can believe me, as I write this, my pulse is racing up to unimaginable heights again and I really wonder how you can get hold of tranquillisers without a prescription.

So we, quite cleverly, position ourselves at the cat door. It's easy to intercept her when she comes out. Think again! No one, really no one, can imagine how agile this little thing is. Out of the hatch, slipped under my backside and back into the living room. New hunt, new luck. The tomcats have disappeared in the meantime and probably don't understand the world any more. I heard them whispering: "What the hell was that?????". So we follow her into the living room and there she is, squatting on the sofa, peeing! And bang! Down again! What else is there in this great house that I can destroy, she seems to ask, because now she sprints out of the living room around the corner into the corridor and up the stairs where the bedrooms are. I go after her and Tehres, still calm (she MUST be swallowing something illegal!): "Oh let her, she can't do anything up there." Hey guys, I really don't want to push it here, but my dog will NEVER NEVER NEVER enter this house again. She took a shit on two beds upstairs and peed in the corridor and then we went home.

Oh yes, in retrospect - thank God - the vase from the Ming Dynasty turned out to be one from Ikea. Nevertheless, I am still infected with the Jack Russell virus. And I will probably stay that way. She's actually quite a sweetie.

Sincerely

Your Ilvy