> So we'd go out in the morning and my grandfather would call out "Jack" and the Dog would come running down the yard, and then next thing you'd see the crow hopping down the yard after the dog.

Tangent: this is a handy effect, if you could get it to work, but it’s a bit surprising if it did work: animals have different audible frequency ranges, and, obviously, they’ll only respond to a name they can hear. Dogs and crows might have similar audible ranges (this is suggestive anecdata to that effect!), but I know that the range for cats is slightly higher, such that a name like “jack” wouldn’t even register to them. (You need a name with a close/front vowel sound in it, since humans produce those with a high pitch. Thus why the word “kitty” is thought to exist—it evolved as an optimal call-name! Or you can just “pspsps”, since that also comes out high-enough that cats hear it quite clearly.)

From what you said, there was also a cat named “jack”—did it come when called? If so, did calling it require a second, higher-keyed calling of the name?