8. Porcupines, Prairie Dogs & other Stories
Jackie, encountered two porcupines in her life with us. The first time she had quite a few quills in her face. The second time she and Prince, Dr. Lloyd's dog had run off together at night on one of their many excursions together. When we saw them
the next morning we felt sorry for Prince. His face and body was full of quills. Mrs. Lloyd took him into the veterinarian's office and they worked for hours on him trying to carefully take out the
quills. As they were pulling out the last quill Prince died on the table. Jackie mourned for her best friend for at least two days, before she even had any life in her again.
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It was springtime, in Colorado, when the prairie dogs would start running around the hillsides.
My dad was working up at Woodgate Subdivision, building about five or six house at the time. Woodgate Subdivision is built on top of and on the side of a hill. There was a barbed wire fence that kept the cows from going into the subdivision. My dad would take Jackie with him and let her run around on the hillside and just have fun instead of being tied up at the trailer in the trailer park.
One day while my dad and Jackie were at Woodgate, Jackie was running on the hillside catching prairie dogs. My dad, stopped to watch for a while to see how she would catch them.
Jackie would crouch down and watch as the dogs would come out of their homes and go visit another dog. Then she would move just a little or something else would startle them. They would head back to their home, as they were running for their homes so would Jackie, she would beat them every
time and that would be the end of their life.
Occasionally Jackie would come home with blood around her muzzle and we knew that she had been chasing prairie dogs again.
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One day while we were leaving in Keene, Texas. Dean and I gave Jackie a hair cut because she had some matted hair and also we wanted to cool her off since she wasn't use to hot weather. When we got done cutting her fur it looked worse than
ever. So we took her into Cleburne, Texas to a groomer where they clipped her. When we went back about an hour later to pick her up we tried not to laugh at her. For instead of looking like an
Australian Shepherd, she looked more like a Schnauzer. Jackie was so embarrassed that she didn't even want to look at us; all she wanted to do was get into the car and hide from everyone for a long time. We kept trying to encourage her. Finally she began to feel better about her haircut and could face the world again.
After that though we went to Wal-Mart and bought her a child's wadding pool, which we filled up with water. She enjoyed that a lot.
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One evening while we were still living in Montrose, Colorado, a UPS truck pulled into our driveway. Dean noticed the headlights and looked out to see who it was. She watched the man get out of the truck and head up to our front door.
Jackie quietly picked up a stick and placed it at his feet as he got out. He didn't even notice, so Jackie picked it up again and placed it in front of his feet as he kept walking to the
trailer. The last time Jackie kept the stick in her mouth and just barely touched him on his calf and he almost flew up to the sky. The man stopped and didn't move, not knowing how big that something was. Dean opened the door and told him, "Its ok, my dog just wants you to throw her a stick."
He reached down and took the stick, which Jackie then placed in his hand, then threw it for her.
That was Jackie's way of greeting people generally. Before anyone could get out of their car she would have a stick lying on the ground for them to pick up and throw for her. If you didn't throw it right away she would keep it up till that person would throw her the stick. Sometimes we would have to stop our conversation with the person and inform them of what she wanted done.
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Around October and November we had to start tying Jackie up at night so that she wouldn't get into the sheep. We would usually just use a piece of rope and tie her to the porch so that she could get under the trailer for some warmth.
Early one Sunday morning the rope came untied somehow and Jackie and Prince went exploring.
When I got up to feed her she wasn't around, so I called her and no answer. My mom and I thought that maybe she was out running around with Prince and we didn't think anything of it for about half the day. Late in the afternoon we realized that she
still hadn't come home yet. We started looking for her on foot all around the property and Sanders property.
By now it was getting late and we inquired of my dad's help with the search. We went calling for her and this time Prince came with us. We would try to get Prince to show us where Jackie was. A couple of times he went over the edge of the ravine but he never informed us of where Jackie was.
We thought that she had gotten hurt, killed or even was hung by the rope. We were just about out of the cow pasture when we heard a very faint whine; (Remember Jackie never really whined or barked, except in play.) looking down among some sagebrush on the side of the ravine, my dad could just barely make her out. He scrambled down the side to where she was and untangled the rope after he freed her. She was so happy to be free.
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I was in academy when this next story took place.
My parents were coming over to Campion for a visit and to sell apples to the faculty and others whom had ordered them from us. The van and the trailer behind the van was full of apples. The only places to sit were the engine cover, driver and passengers
seats.
Jackie had to sit on the engine cover. She moped all the way to Gunnison, which was an hour away from Montrose. No matter how much coaxing my mom tried to get her to look out the window she just wouldn't do it.
When they pulled into Gunnison, my mom noticed a truck, which was moving some stuff. In the back in a very small corner was a dog bigger than Jackie and didn't even have room to turn around. My mom said to Jackie, "Look at that dog, he is bigger
than you and doesn't even have the same amount of room that you do. You should be happy that you can turn around."
After that Jackie sat up the rest of the way to Campion, which was five hours away.
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We would go back to Michigan twice a year to see my grandparents and other relatives. Jackie would accompany us on our trips.
You could tell if we were in Colorado still if Jackie was seating on the seat looking out the window at all the scenery as it went by. The minute that we entered Nebraska she would lie down and very occasionally she would look to see where she was. On the whole she never looked out the window unless
we coaxed her to do so. She loved being with us. She didn't care for any state but, Colorado.
Coming back home from Michigan as soon as we entered Colorado, she would sit up on the seat and look out the window with her ears alert and watching everything around her again.
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We loved tickling Jackie, it would make Dean and I laugh. All we had to do was pet her in a calming way by placing our hand on her head and glide it over her back and down over the stump of her tail. We would do this till we could feel her relax then we would take two fingers and gently poke her sides in front of her hips. Her fur would ripple like a wave coming on to the beach, and then go back out to sea. Then we would start all over again relaxing her just so that we could see her fur ripple back and forth for a second or two.
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When my sister and her husband would come home after being out together they would sometimes sit in their truck and talk. Now if Jackie had thought that they had spent too much time in the truck she would go to the back of the truck and rub
her back against the bumper.
The first time Jackie started to rub on the truck my brother in law asked Dean, "What is going on?"
Dean replied, "It's probably Jackie."
Looking in the side mirror my brother in law noticed Jackie with her back up under the bumper and rubbing it. The truck was bouncing up and down plus side-to-side. They then got out of the truck to give her the attention that she felt that she needed.
