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Dear Jane,

Lucy Jackson suggested that I should send you a few pictures of our Irish Terrier, “Dooley”.  It was Lucy’s book and her encouragement when I met her in 2007 that led us to get Dooley.  He is typical of the best of the breed. Wants to meet everyone, loves children and other dogs, plays the fool yet is very intelligent.  He is also mischievous and makes us laugh every day. 

Now aged 18 months, Dooley has clocked up a rescue of a fellow dog.  While out walking in the early evening in the country last February, he insisted that a bizarre whimpering noise from an open barn on our neighbour’s land needed investigating.  I thought he was just playing up and on climbing a fence to look into the barn where pallets of logs were stored, I could see nothing.  Still he insisted, with increasing urgency that something was wrong and refused to walk away.  Eventually, I looked right down at ground level to see if it was just mice or rats that were exciting him, only to see a Jack Russell trapped under about one ton of logs with his head twisted a horrible angle.  Having set about throwing off all the logs as quickly as possible, the Jack Russell could finally be extracted from beneath the broken pallet base.  He was cold, dehydrated and very frightened but after a good licking from Dooley, seemed to relax.  We walked back to a nearby farm with me carrying the ‘patient’ wrapped in my jacket and found that he lived there and had been missing for some time.  The Jack Russell made a full recovery and Dooley got an extra large bone that evening. 

With kind regards,

John Heap