Letter From America: Spit Jumping
...Her other occupation is flying out of the living room, down the corridor, across the bedroom and through the doggie-flap at ninety miles an hour, to skirt the patio and small flower patch to get to the far end of the garden and bark at any birds that might be in the trees just beyond the wall. She does this speculatively, and there are not always any birds about, but she is persistent....
Ronnie Bray reveals that you should prepare yourself for an active life if you are thinking of becoming the owner of a Border Collie.
If you had been in our home this morning when I was making ready to go with Gay to visit her daughter and son-in-law’s new home, you might have wondered why the man in the shower repeatedly shouted, “GO!” When I thought about it, it struck me as odd too, and so I make an explanation.
I do not know what others do in the shower, but I have never heard repeated shouting of a command. I have heard singing from abluters, and have sung myself during the loofah and shampoo process, but today there was shouting and I was the one shouting. The reason is simple and you will not think me a victim to Tourret's Syndrome after I have explained.
We have two dogs. The smaller of the two is the eldest. She is Frankie and is a Border Collie. Border Collies do not make good house pets because they have to be busy during their working day, which is sixteen hours long. If tending and herding your sheep do not fully occupy the collie’s time, the dog will find something that will.
Frankie has two alternate occupations, necessary because sheep are in short supply at our house. One of them is ‘spit-jumping.’ Spit-jumping means that she has a favourite place and jumps up as high as she can get. At the same time, she opens her jaws and thrusts out her tongue. The saliva in her mouth then comes flying out in a stream of spit balls that arc high into the air before landing along her back, but chiefly on her head and face.
To prevent her trampling on the flowers, I dug out an area, removed all the gravel so her paws would not become sore, and dug into it some garden compost and as couple of bags of kitty litter. This makes the ground softer so she does not lame herself. She keeps to her patch, which is greatly to her credit. At first, I tried to have her not spit-jump, but it is apparent that she has this driven need to do it, and so we do not interfere apart from giving her a good rub down with a bath towel when she comes in for a break.
Hard hearted as we are, we drape the towel around her head and call her Mother Teresa. She looks a lot like that good lady, and also has a sweet soul that is just as gentle as hers was. The towelling done, Frankie returns enthusiastically to her jumping place to continue her ‘work.’
Her other occupation is flying out of the living room, down the corridor, across the bedroom and through the doggie-flap at ninety miles an hour, to skirt the patio and small flower patch to get to the far end of the garden and bark at any birds that might be in the trees just beyond the wall. She does this speculatively, and there are not always any birds about, but she is persistent.
The main problem with this occupation is that she will not go unbidden: she has to be sent by the shepherd. The shepherd c’est moi! She comes to find me and presents herself at the ready, square on to me, her silken ears erect, her black and white mane fanned out, one foreleg curled under ready for the swift turn, looking every inch the beautiful and smart doggie that she is. I have to give the word of command – “GO!” Then she moves out at amazing speed, reaches her position, and issues some orders of her own. She has to use the doggie door in the bedroom even if the patio doors from the dining area are wide open. She is a creature of habit.
And thus, apart from the time she spends being simply adorable at my side, where I have to scratch her neck or else she goes and lies down somewhere else, and other than the time she spends trying to herd Bell, the most unherdable dog you ever saw, she divides her time between spit-jumping and bird scaring.
I was in the shower this morning when Frankie decided that a change was as good as a rest, and she had already had a rest. Her pretty little head came poking through the shower curtain in the middle of my second curtain call for ‘Nessan Dorma,’ and she asked me in her amazing voice, that sounds like a dove’s ‘coo,’ if she could go out.
If you could see her, you would realise her insistence, and see how earnest she is about this work. Her whole frame trembles as her muscles are fixed in powerful tension, ready to move any way necessary to complete her appointed task. I had no choice but to interrupt the performance – I gave the capacity audience it’s ticket money back – and became the simple shepherd lad at the beck and call of his faithful dog. I shouted, “GO!”
How many times I shouted, “GO!” I cannot tell. Repetition is involved because once Frankie has stood fast against the avian foe, she runs back in to ask whether she can go out again, and this is the pattern of her activity in that endeavour. It can last for hours, but this morning there was an enforced terminus when Gay and I went to see the house. We left the dogs behind, much to their chagrin.
Later today the game will start again, and wherever I am,, I will be shouting “GO!” until Frankie clocks off for the day, and resumes herding the unherdable, our big horse of a dog that plays hard enough for two dogs. And that is a blessing keeps that the universe in equilibrium, because Frankie never plays, and Belle never works. Do I ever tire of shouting “GO!” for an obsessive-compulsive doggie? “NO!” Oh, sorry – no! You see, our doggies give us so much in love, laughter, amusement, and ……
Sorry. I have to go. Frankie needs me!
Copyright © Ronnie Bray
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Other stories at:
http://www.2theheart.com/author_ronnie_bray
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/voices/011024summer.html
I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.
~Albert Einstein
