We used to have a border collie called Jesse. The farmer’s collie bitch across the road from us in Warwickshire had a bunch of very cute puppies. For a long time I had not wanted to have a pet and Susan did. Well, one day she went to visit the new puppies and one of them ran over to the fence and started licking her hand. She was immediately smitten and came home to tell me she wanted that puppy. Long story short, I said something like, “Oh, hell, go ahead, but you have to take care of it and clean up after it as well.” Naturally she agreed and a few days later we got a new dog. Susan named him Jesse after Jesse Jackson because, she said, he was black and beatiful.
The first night, locked in the kitchen, the poor thing was frightened and missing his family. We had lined a box with some old blankets for his bed and we tried to get him to sleep in it, but he just cried and cried. I spent most of that night in the kitchen with Jesse stroking him and talking quietly to make him feel safe and loved. Yeah, that’s me: born again dog lover!
Jesse had a pretty good life in Warwickshire, California and Gloucestershire. The worst thing was when we moved back from the States to England and he had to stay in a quarantine kennel for six months. When it was over, we took him home to our little thatched cottage in Gloucestershire worried whether he would be able to make his home. He was fine with the house and garden and took ownership straight away.
When he died at the age of fourteen, the farmer form across the road came over with a spade and helped me bury him in a corner of our garden. It’s a good thing he did because I was bawling so hard I couldn’t have dug the grave by myself; born again dog lover that I had become!
In those days, there was a television series called “One Man and His Dog”. It was a sports program showing sheep dog trials, a competition of shepherds and their collies moving some sheep around a defined course, put them through gates and into a pen. I think we enjoyed the program because of Jesse. Anyway, we sort of missed it when it was finally taken off the air.
Hooray! Thanks to digital satellite TV, the sheep dog trials are back on television. This time it’s the world championships with shepherds and dogs from a lot of different countries.
All the sheep are English.
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