Interesting Pets: Jax a Weirmaraner

One of the first exceptional pets we had was one of our first Weimaraner dog - Ajax.

We called him Jax for short. We were interested in field trial dogs and we got him through an ad in the paper. When we went to take a look at this puppy, we were told that the owner would only sell him to someone who was going to field trial this puppy. We didn’t know anything about field trials, my husband just wanted a hunting dog. This set a path for us on training hunting dogs and field trailing them.

Jax was an unusually intelligent dog. He leaned very fast, in fact he taught us how just fast a dog can teach a human. Unfortunately Jax did not live very long, he had a very rare disease where the food he ate did him no good, it just went through him. But that did not detour him from being a wonderful, fabulous and unusual pet.

The quiet neighborhood we lived in was surrounded by industrial businesses. Our yard was fenced on three sides by a chain link fence. The front of our back yard was not fenced but Jax knew exactly what was our yard and patrolled it and made sure no other dogs, cats or anything came onto our property.

One day a big beautiful show German Shepherd has the nerve to walk on our front sidewalk. This was a no-no with Jax. My husband heard an awful sound outside and went out the front door to see what this sound was. He saw Jax had this German Shepard dog by the throat and was flopping him from side to side. He ran and was yelling for Jax to let the dog loose. Jax stopped, let go of the dog and just stood there watching him. This German Shepard managed to rise and leave quickly. From that day on, this German Shepard would walk down the sidewalk until right before our sidewalk where he would cross the street and go until he was passed our place, re-cross the street to our side on the other side of our place and continue his stroll. Jax would stand on our property and watch this dog until he was out of sight.

How Jax knew where our property was, I do not know how he knew, but he did.

He tolerated kids in the back yard, until the scuffling or fighting started, this he did not like. Jax was never a dog to bark or growl. We encouraged our kids and the neighbor kids to play in our back yard, that way I knew exactly where they were and kept an eye on them. Jax also kept an eye on them. When we had kids in the back yard I had to put Jax in the house or dog pen. He never bit anyone, but he did not like the fighting and would go and stand between them, they didn’t like this and would try to push him away. It was just better to not have him outside when there were other kids in our yard.

When my husband was home, Jax seemed to know he didn’t have to be on guard, but when my husband was gone he was on guard.

One time, I had just come home from the hospital from having an appendectomy at 8 ½ months pregnant and was extremely sore when there was a knock on the door. I did not feel like answering the door, but found whoever was knocking was persistent. So, I managed slowly to get to the door and opened the door. We had an outside storm door that let in fresh air but also kept out cold air out in the winter.

It was a Jesus Christ Later Day Saints person and when I told him that I had just got out of the hospital and did not want to listen to him and started to close the door. He stuck his foot in the door so I couldn’t close the door. I looked at him and said: “You remove your foot or I will release my dog.” Jax was standing at my side looking at this man. He didn’t bark or growl, but I knew he was ready to defend me. This man, looked at me and Jax, and I said. “Remove your foot now!” He did remove his foot, he wouldn’t have had a foot or leg left if he didn’t, Jax would have made short work of him. I wonder to this day whatever possessed this man to stick his foot in the door. Was he really a Jesus Christ Later Day Saints person or just a man looking for mischief? He choose the wrong house that day.

Jax was very protective of our kids.

When we had our first baby girl. We used to go shooting with our pistols on the shooting range, we usually left our daughter in the car in her seat with the windows open and Jax inside. We knew she was protected, because Jax wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.

But one day we were there, the baby in her seat in the front seat, Jax got in the driver’s seat. All the windows were down for fresh air. When a man walked by and saw the baby and Jax, he decided that the dog was a danger and started to reach inside to move the dog – because he told us later that he thought the dog was going to hurt the baby. When he started to reach inside, Jax took his arm in his mouth and just held him there. He didn’t shake him or growl he just held him. When the man tried to pull his arm away, Jax just clamped down harder holding him in his mouth. The man started yelling and screaming to get the dog away from him. We heard and looked and saw what was happening and went quickly to the car. My husband told Jax to let him go. He released his arm and just sat there starring at the man. Jax never moved from the driver’s seat. He was not a nervous dog where he would go back and forth from the back seat to the front seat, he stayed in one place protecting our daughter.

If you see a dog in a car one thing you must never do is reach inside that car for that is the dogs job of protecting their property. This was learned by this man, Jax did not do any damage to his arm other than just hold him, but he could have done a lot of severe damage.

My uncle liked to visit me during his lunch hour, he was a barber and liked to get away at lunch time and often spent lunch with me – but Jax did not like men in the house when my husband was not there. I always had to put Jax in his kennel during this time for he would not let my uncle in the house.

I always found it interesting how some dogs decide certain things. Jax would not allow any other man in our house when I was alone. He never allowed any other animals in our yard, how he knew what was our property, I never figured this out. He did not like kids fighting, he didn’t like my husband and me arguing. He did not like kids crying. He was very protective of all of us. We loved Jax, and wished he could have lived much longer than he did, he was an exceptional and interesting pet.

He was rated the best two-year-old trial dog in our region. His ranging was much farther and wider than any other hunting dog in the Weimaraner field trials and when he was in the national field trials, they did not have the field wide enough and had chopped down the outside weeds so the spectators could watch and because of this he tore his feet up on the first run, running through this stubble and was unable to participate in the further trials.

He was exceptional mouse catcher. One time we were on a shooting range warehouse and he saw a mouse run across the room where the mouse ran up the wall. Jax ran after him and caught the mouse about halfway up that 80’ wall and brought the mouse with the tail sticking out of his mouth to my husband!

Jax won almost every field trial he was in, he was an exceptional field trial dog. He was an exceptional family pet who put his life on the line every day protecting us.