Chapter 10 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

Jeanie With The Light Blonde Hair

Blitzen just happened along. But Mom had dreams of raising pure blood Scotch Collies, and bought an AKC registered collie pup from a friend. Her AKC name was Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair, as the name had to be at least three words long.

I think Mom wanted to make some money on her own, and tried all sorts of industrious things. The only profitable thing was a regular salary when working as an RN. I asked her later in life why she worked …and if she really needed the money. She said she needed it for luxuries. I accepted that answer for years until I thought about it and wondered what Mom’s luxuries were, as I hadn’t noticed anything I would consider an item for her alone. When I asked, she said she wanted a regular washer, instead of the old dangerous wringer washer. She also bought a refrigerator, replacing our old ice box. And she wanted a freezer so she could freeze the garden vegetables and stock up on groceries when on sale. We had spent years without a car after the Willys died. We had to back up a hill in reverse to have the engine make it up a hill when going on the annual Sunday School Picnic. That was probably the last time we used it. She was working regularly when I was in High School when we finally got a new Dodge Sedan. I thought it funny that she called those things luxuries, as most women then would have considered fur coats and jewelry luxuries, and her choices as necessities. My father had a Civil Service job at the Boston Naval Shipyard, and brought in an average wage, and it was enough to house, clothe, and feed five children, but not enough to “keep up with the Joneses.”

She prepared for her raising Collie pups by fencing in the back yard to keep Jeanie enclosed during her heats. We owned land to within 10 feet of the house in back of us, as well as the swampland behind their house which sat on a less than an acre lot of land. She set the fence much less than our property line in front of their house, giving our neighbors a proper lawn which made their house look less cramped. The next owners, with their three young boys, would just assumed that this was their property, and I can remember arguing about it with them. Here I was starting a lifetime of walking on other’s property, and yet needing to lay claim to half the lawn of my neighbors and childhood friends. Land wasn’t so important to my parents, and they would probably have given that property line a tweak for them for no cost, but back in those days no one would bother.

It was a new thing having a dog that was kept in a protective environment. The fenced in area looked quite nice, and Mom planted liliacs along the back and planted annuals along the side next to Williams Court. But Jeanie always kept close to home anyway, shifting her instinctive shepherd dog tendencies to our family, in lieu of sheep. Sometimes we’d go on walks as a family, and if we children lagged behind, it would frustrate Jeanie, and she’d strain back on the leash to try to herd us stragglers back into the family group.

I think my mother waited until Jeanie’s second heat to have her bred to another Scotch Collie with good bloodlines. She paid to have a beautiful stud come in, but Jeanie had other ideas. The two dogs played like they were puppies together, and she wouldn’t breed with this frisky stud.

We were careful to keep her in her yard when she was in heat, but that didn’t insure that she wouldn’t jump the fence or that a male dog wouldn’t get in. When she had her following heat, before we could get another stud to come in, we found her and a wire-haired terrier locked in mating stance out on the driveway, which means Jeanie had jumped the fence. She never did have pure bred puppies, but had a nice healthy litter of wire haired terriers that only had that pointy nose as proof of any collie genes.

It was big difference having a purebred dog that we had to take a little more care for in having her on a leash for a change when we‘d take a walk… instead of just having a dog tag along behind us. She didn’t really need the leash, as she’d have stuck with us anyway, but she loved being on it as if it were a sign of importance, and perhaps it was that for us as well. I remember, however, that she wasn’t road wary, never having to find out those rules by herself, and we had her loose once on Merrimac Street when a fully loaded truck was coming down the hill and Jeanie was plumb in the middle of the street. We hollered and yelled for her to come to the side, and it only confused her, and the truck came to a screeching halt within a foot of where she stood. We kept her on the leash like our own lives depended upon it from then on, and I don’t think we ever told our mother about that event.

Jeanie had the greatest disposition… except for ONE time. There was a local dog show for any North Woburn resident to enter their dog… pure bred or otherwise. I, of course, entered Jeanie. She was great on the leash, and obeyed every order I gave her. She was also the most beautiful dog of them all, so she won first prize …which was just a cheap straw hat, as this event was funded by the summer playground crafts program. It was a hot day, and this was the first and only time Jeanie was in any social event. When we went up to get the hat, me proudly getting Jeanie to heel next to me, another dog kind of made an advance towards her, and with the heat and the excitement of this unusual activity, Jeanie just snapped, both literally and psychologically, as I never saw her try to attack another dog in her life. So my moment of victory was a bigger moment of embarrassment. They still gave us the prize, but I was so ashamed that I wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone, and was glad that the event was over at that point so I could just go home. She didn’t hurt the other dog, and it wasn’t totally her fault. But I’ve always been a person who gets embarrassed easily and already had a list of embarrassments which I would add to in years ahead, and think on when life got me down as if by some kind of magical thinking I could make the growing list of embarrassments disappear.

Jeanie knew everyone’s schedule and would await at the bend of Williams Court where she would be in view of Merrimac Street, and was there to greet each of us when we got home from Elementary school as well as High School when we were older. When I’d get home from school the first thing I’d do is change my clothes. Having to wear a dress or skirt and blouse to school, and being a natural tomboy, I couldn’t wait to get into comfortable jeans, and take Jeanie for her walk.

Once in my old clothes, I’d have a sandwich, giving Jeanie the corner crusts. For years after Jeanie was gone, I wouldn’t eat those corners of my sandwiches though I was never the type to cut off the crusts of my bread. Perhaps it was a subconscious way of remembering and honoring Jeanie. When through with my snack, I would then only have to look towards the corner where we hung the leash, and Jeanie would start getting excited. Through her I learned that some things never grow old or boring to a dog. Each day and each walk seemed to her to be a brand new adventure. I think it helped me to look at each day with fresh eyes myself. Dogs are always ready, and take that daily walk with the zest of someone doing something wonderful for the first time in her life.

My mother loved to play the piano. That was okay, but if she sang too, Jeanie would break out into song and howl along with the music. Jeanie didn’t need a voice to encourage howling if my older brother Dan played his harmonica, or Tucker played the squeeze box… a cheaper version of an accordion. Jeanie would also howl for happy when someone had been away for a long time… whether a few days, a week or for years.

When my oldest brother Tucker went into the Army, he would come home on leave; as would the next oldest, Dan, who joined the Air Force. Whenever they came home, they would have a singing welcome from Jeanie. This was during the Korean War, and we were fortunate that they didn‘t see action, as Dan ended up stationed in Japan, and Tucker’s base was in Germany. Tucker fell in love with a German girl, and rules being that he couldn’t marry her while in the Army, he did after by arranging to get discharged in Germany. He worked over there saving up money to take his young family back to the States. He learned the German language so well that some of the German citizens thought his accent was in being from a different part of their country.

Tucker finally came home from Germany with his wife, Elsi, and two children, Brigetta and Ellen (Joanne to be born a few years later in this country--the only one besides her father without dual citizenship). He hadn’t been home for about four years, but Jeanie knew him immediately, and we thought she’d never stop singing her hellos. Tucker was talking softly in a strange language to her to calm her down and I realized he was speaking German. “Tucker, she can’t understand GERMAN!” I told him, but, I guess she understood him better than I did.

Jeanie was our companion, friend, and comforter while I, and Jerry (a year older than I), and Peter, (three years younger), went through most of our school years. I don’t think I anthropomorphized animals as a child so much as thought they had their own language. It was my belief that the rabbits, cats, dogs and squirrels could discuss things with their own species, like foreigners in their own tongue. Jeanie taught me that animals and people have many things in common: The need to be loved; to be understood; and to be cared for. She showed me that when people couldn’t fill these needs for us, her ability to be there for us was more than adequate. I began to realize through her that there was more than language to communication, although she aptly learned key words so well I had to take to spelling them if I didn‘t want her to know what I was saying, and then she’d figure out the tones of the spelling to understand that as well. I could easily tell when an animal was happy, sad or hungry, but Jeanie could tell when someone was upset sometimes before they realized it themselves, and would rest her chin on their lap knowing that the gentle hand which stroked her head would receive needed comfort in return.

When I was ten years old, our family went on a summer vacation to Peakes Island, Maine. Having no family car at that time, we took the train. In order to take along Jeanie, Mom had to buy her a muzzle and have her ride in the baggage car. Well, since the railroad wouldn’t bend the rules about having Jeanie ride in the passenger cars, Mom rode the entire trip in the baggage car with the dog. Jeanie didn’t like the idea of swimming in the water, but my mother had a rule for all of us. Go in for a swim a day “come Hell or High Water.” That meant the dog as well, and Mom would carry Jeanie into the salt water of Casco Bay until she was chest deep, and let the dog go. She’d do her natural dog-paddle to the shore, and after shaking the salt water from her long fur, she’d get feeling all happy and silly, running around the beach like a crazed puppy. I’ve since seen the same reaction in dogs after being bathed. Almost unanimously they all hate baths, but love the feeling after being bathed, and act so silly.

My cousin Peggy’s family had a cottage on Hadlock’s Cove on the other side of the Island, but she would sometimes walk the three miles across to visit us and spend most of the time combing out Jeanie’s winter coat, which would suddenly start shedding in the middle of the summer, and if not combed out would mat-up. To prove a point, my mother once stuffed a sofa sized pillow with her shedding hair, as she always boasted that Jeanie shed enough hair to do just that.

Jeanie lived to be about 10 years old. I was a teenager at the time she died from an infection in her uterus. The vet tried to operate and remove her infected uterus… a very late neutering by hysterectomy… but died during the operation. We were all heartbroken. I don’t think my mother ever loved a dog so much. Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair was the first dog we all really grew attached to--she was a member of our family.