Had Dog, Did Travel

Jenny, bed and van, 1986. Photo by John Blocher.

This is Princess Guinevere of Westcott Street, better known as Jenny Dog, Jen-Jen, Trouble Dog or even Dognose. She was the first and smartest dog I ever had. When I heard about the dog with the large vocabulary on NPR today, I thought of Jenny immediately.

She arrived under my slumlord ex-boyfriend's jacket in 1978, the progeny of Bob's hideous curly-haired gray dog whose name I've since forgotten. Bob called my puppy Princess. I lived on Westcott Street and was a T.H. White fan, so now you know where the long version of her name came from.

When she was a puppy, Jenny used to come with me on the 15 minute walk to Liz's house. Syracuse University paid me $10 a week to read textbooks to Liz, a blind grad student at the School of Social Work. Once when I tried letting Jenny go outside on the honor system, she immediately took off for Liz's place. I had to get dressed and follow her there.

Jenny was the mascot of my used record store, Rockarama (1979-82). One day, a meter reader threatened to kill her because she barked at him. I called and reported him to the gas company. Jenny's favorite Christmas present, aside from food, was balloons, which she used to chase until they popped in her mouth or under her paw. Then she would look at us expectantly, and wait for us to blow up another one.

In 1986, my husband John and I put a mattress in the back of our 1984 Dodge van, put most of our other possessions into storage, and drove around the country looking for someplace it wasn't winter. It was cold and windy even in Florida that February, and the Florida Keys gave me severe allergy problems. We eventually made our way as far north as Montreal, where it was really winter. Jenny spent the trip on the bed in theback of the van, coming out to frolic in the snow at Niagara Falls or check out the ocean. (We really got around that year.) At one point we were following what was left of Route 66 through Oklahoma when the road dead ended at a cemetery. Cows were hanging out there. "Look, Jenny! Cows!" we said, and Jenny barked. She liked to bark at cows.

Jenny knew the commands Jenny up! Get down! Jenny come! Get the stick! and I forget what else. The particular way we had of calling her ("Jenny dog!") got translated into notes (think of the first three notes of Ring Around the Rosy, or Nyah-Nyah-Nyah-Nyah Nyah Nyah!), which after a while we whistled to call her instead of using words. If you ever hear a woman whistling those particular notes in a grocery store, that's me calling John away from the magazine rack. Several other voice commands also became whistles, which Jenny responded to just as readily as the spoken words.

I loved Noodle, who came along as Jenny was wasting away from Cushing's Disease, and I love Tuffy, our present dog. But Jenny was special.

Karen

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Don't Forget the Dog! (journal entry about Tuffy Toro)

Tags: Dogs, Travel