Jolene and the Healing Quality of Dog Spit

I can’t remember having leaves so early on our high desert prairie. Shade is scarce since losing our trees. There’s just enough room under the lilac bush for the dogs. The lack of lawn doesn’t change. Call it fire mitigation because I’m not watering sod meant to be living in Kentucky. It’s windy, of course, but no fires close today.

Weather isn’t small talk when you’ve just had the warmest winter on record. I can’t complain. All I ranch on my little spread are retired horses. The price of hay went up on our last load. If I thought the rancher was getting more money, I wouldn’t hate it so much. Keep a kind thought for those farmers and ranchers who feed us and our animals. They don’t want prices to go up either.

Take a breath, Anna. You’re whining. Cue the soundtrack from any old detective movie and pretend to have a deep, cigarette-burned voice.

It was a year ago. Mister and I were reclining in faded plastic Adirondack chairs, wearing dark glasses and stained Hawaiian shirts that looked like we slept in them. Because we did. One chair over, my confidence was drunk on decaf, hungover with black circles under her eyes from watching the news. It had been a rough few months with some hard losses. Uncertainty ahead. We were risk-taking road warriors high-centered on the Colorado prairie. 

There was a puppy in Texas. Her name was Tiny, and she had sharp teeth. She’d been sending me psychic telegrams for five weeks. Each more desperate than the last.

HEY YOU STOP ARRIVED IN THE WRONG STATE STOP DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT STOP

We knew she was from a better class of dogs than me and Mister. He is my right hand. I needed his buy-in. He blinked and dozed off, never having been a full-time dog. I couldn’t read him. If it isn’t a pup cup at Starbucks, he doesn’t show much on his face. But when he’s conscious, he’s a one-person dog. Could he be a one-person plus one-dog kind of guy? I figured Tiny was gang material, but would he?

The Family holding her had been sending photos. Way too many photos of her belly. Mister sold his skis and his gold embossed Complete Works of Shakespeare. I hocked the antique Tupperware. When we had the ransom money, I made the call from a phone booth at Prairie Dog Saloon in town. There was a dame’s voice on the other end. 

“Hi, Anna. We always knew she was your dog. What took you so long?”

Ouch! Jolene is giving me the side-eye because I just caught a toe on her dog bed. In my defense, my writing studio is 8×10, has three desks, a bookshelf, a chair, and four dog beds. Mister would shrug in solidarity with me, but his shoulders don’t work that way. Probably for the best. Instead, he discreetly averts his snout. 

It was only a stumble, but Jolene got up and licked my leg. She mentioned I have the balance of a three-legged goat. Then we all teary-smile at the memory of Arthur, our dead three-legged goat.

Mister licks his graying jowls as I fondle my wattle. Sometimes we still wonder what we were thinking. Jolene is like a teenage gymnastics champion, doing flips and handsprings through our lives a year later. Mister and I can’t help but feel thick and cranky around her. She pokes us right in our arthritis. 

Jolene is still licking. They say it’s a vallhund thing, but I want to believe in the miraculous healing qualities of dog spit. Those people who correct their dogs never get the benefit of dog drool. You have to feel a little sorry for them.

Jolene looks up and then licks some more. Marking one’s territory is never done, she says as she moves on to Mister’s ear.

This week I recognized a horse in a fancy ad posted by a trainer I know. The trainer told the story of the mare’s phenomenal recovery from a rough start. She didn’t mention the years I worked with the terrified horse before the mare came to her. Erase me. It’s okay. The mare looked great, I’m happy to say. Just wish the trainer would have waited till I was dead for bragging rights. But wait. Maybe she thinks I am.

Then this happened. It’s so rare to get to read other people’s mail, but someone who wanted to share my last blog hit reply instead of forward. This is the message she wrote to her daughter, but sent to me.

“This woman (Anna Blake) writes about her horses and dogs. I love her ideas about both. I think you would really enjoy reading her series of blogs about her newest dog, Jolene. She writes about how she is “training” her without overtly training her. Very interesting. I love it. She is a horse trainer by profession, but loves dogs too. Love, Mom.”

What a flattering description. Kind words that feel so homey and warm. Sometimes it’s good when people talk behind your back.

It’s a push and pull life. Good and bad stirred up in the same hour. Emotions can get bruised just spectating. But the thing about life is that it’s in constant flux. Sometimes change is turbulent, and sometimes tender. Sometimes painful, and sometimes there’s dog spit. Without the ground moving under our feet, mixing it all up, a person could get a little stuck. Not me, says Jolene.

Spring means wind, one day summer and the next winter. The barometer yo-yos, and the horses are restless. One more walk-thru tonight in the moonlight. The new hay is stacked high, and the horses don’t nicker. They ask for nothing.

It’s time for bed and I’m about to over-share. Mister sleeps lengthwise on his pillow now. He says at this age, he needs the support. Because the bed with a gel pad isn’t soft enough on its own. Jolene flips to her back, arched over my torso, and stretches her neck out like a silent movie star. If she had a long pale hand, she would drape it over her brow and sigh. I warm my feet on each other, pull the covers up to my nose as Jolene finally settles close, and I breathe us away.

At the end of the day, the story is ours to tell. We tally the two lists, the bitter with the sweet. But we have a choice then. Best to let the bitter get on by itself. But hold tight to the sweet parts. Those moments will be a solace, come what may. 

For Ruth.