Jolene’s Year of Living Joyously

One year ago, my friends were expecting a litter of Swedish Vallhund puppies. After gaining titles in conformation and performance, doing all the genetic testing, and endless preparation, it was finally time. I’d cheered for my friends all the way and was excited about the little ones, who already had puppy homes waiting.

One year ago, I was mourning Preacher Man. In his 11 years with me, he was a challenging corgi, but as it works, also the best teacher. Not my first complicated rescue, but he had some unusual nooks and crannies. It probably says something about me that as a horse trainer, I seem to work with similar issues. What happens when we recognize anxiety behaviors and don’t correct them? Can we accept the horse and not pick them apart? There are a lot of client horses out there who benefited from my conversations with this barky little dog.

One year ago, Mister and I were looking for a new friend. We were heavy with mourning. The world felt cold, and we were more depressed than we had admitted. I searched the rescues for the face that I’d recognize. And I kept cheering for my friends.

There were nine pups in their litter, and eight of them looked like baked potatoes. The last pup was half the size of the others, and my friends had worked a miracle for her survival. I kept an eye on her from two states away. She was easy to find in the group photos.

Some of us are attracted to the runt, thinking they are frail and need our coddling. I see it differently. They are survivors who have had to be smarter and tougher. Literally punching above their weight since birth. I suppose that says something about me, too.

One year ago, she was not our dog. It would be another five weeks before I gave up on finding an elder rescue and screwed up my courage to ask if the pup they called Tiny was available.

One year later, this morning actually, I was up at dawn baking brownies and making little dog treat bags for Jolene’s friends. It’s a first at my age, but Jolene was having a birthday party at scent work class. Which Jolene would tell you is redundant because that class is always a party. As usual, I ask her to humor me. I want to reward her classmates and their humans for tolerating her puppy exuberance. She is loud in her joy. They’re dog people, so they love her anyway.

Most days Mister and I tag-team playing with her. Mister takes the morning shift while I muck, but there are times he loses all patience. He says he didn’t know the whole runt thing would end up this way. If it’s a day that Jolene and I leave home, Mister knows that he doesn’t know what he is missing. Moreover, he doesn’t care. Mister prefers to lounge in the shade of my desk, humming that old Willie Dixon blues song. Some folks are built like this… he rumbles. He takes it slower and deeper than Howlin’ Wolf did, because that’s the long-and-low dog tradition.

I don’t sing along because her relentless joy has sustained me. I can’t make a joke about it. It has been an absolute privilege to watch her grow. A privilege to let her be a dog first, my companion second. Jolene is a small flame in this windstorm of a world. She is enough to redeem my heart. Mister rolls his eyes at me because I’m such a dweeb.

In my line of work, it isn’t just that you hear about all the horror stories. You end up working with the horses who are in trouble and their owners who didn’t create the problem. Neither of them trusts easily now. If you get quiet for a minute and truly listen, horses will tell you exactly what they know about us. Worse, they will show us how they were trained. I stay affirmative because no one will be fixed by the methods that broke them.

A remarkable amount of damage was done when horses were babies. We try to mold them to our will long before they have the mental capacity to understand. With horses in particular, we have harsh traditions that damage youthful bodies. But the memory of soul-killing intimidation lingers for years. Things are changing, but change is never quick or easy. It’s not much better for dogs, but they seem to be a bit more resilient.

I don’t mean to get all nostalgic and whiny when I should be blowing up party balloons, but I’ve watched my friends burn out. I carry residual exhaustion. Maybe what happens to good professionals is that we get to a point where we’re more dog than human. Maybe more horse than whip-and-chair lion tamer.

The irony is that we best learn how to train from those who have been damaged by training. What if the trainers who started those youngsters had to take them back after they came apart? But by then the horses have new owners who work to understand them, or sell them on to fail someone else until they land in rescue. When will we finally learn that horses are as impacted by their childhoods as humans?

On bad days, rescue feels like we are forever cleaning up other people’s mistakes. Rehabbing takes so long that our clients get frustrated and wonder if continuing the cruel training might be the kind thing. The actual definition of crazy-making.

Jolene and I drive home from class. She’s asleep instantly, and I feel ridiculously happy for her. Getting it right for one little dog won’t change the world. But it’s changed mine.

I do prattle on. Mister would like you to know that Jolene isn’t so perfect. She farts. They are tiny and I never hear them, but there is a faint, unrecognizable odor. It smells kind of outdoorsy. It is hard to place at first, so I inhale deeper. Just before I remember.

Sometime in the afternoon, Jolene and I have a little work session. It starts with playing fetch, but then we work on other skills needed for the eventual sheep. Now that she has tamed most of her puppy brain, she learns quickly. Mister is work-avoidant. He’s inside, even knowing Jolene is probably getting treats. Mister would like you to know that he is not a mercenary. Jolene hears the word mercenary and wonders how she’d look wearing an ammo belt in the jungle. Down, girl.

Now it’s time for my work. I’m a horse trainer who sits in front of a computer and gives classes and individual sessions. It’s remarkably easy to do with ordinary technology. Just a cell phone and some earbuds. Tonight is the advanced class on Zoom. Usually the dogs sleep when I talk about horses, but tonight Jolene flies into my lap. She’s avoided looking at the monitor all these months, ignored the bays and the grays, but these horses catch her eye. Maybe the sheep woke her up, or maybe it’s a past-life (?) memory, but these golden horses are spellbinding. Every sense was following the movement of the horses on the screen. They were Norwegian Fjords, not quite the horses of her people, but close enough. (see video here)

Done with videos, we clicked back to the group. Jolene took notice of the human faces on my Zoom screen. I asked them to wave to her, which they did with both hands, and Jolene licked their faces. A great birthday. The kind where everybody gets a present.

We are having a false spring in Colorado. I even heard a meadowlark this morning. The wind ran fast all day and melted the pond ice. By dusk, some Canada geese stopped for a rest. I wrote it down with the date. Apparently, it’s never too late to begin a life list of birds.

The more I work with animals, the more I see it as a race. Them trying to wake up our instincts before we deaden theirs.