Back in 2015, I received a message from an old friend speaking on behalf of someone else he knew, who was trying to find a home for a dog that belonged to another guy. One of those friend of friend of friend kind of deals.
The email read:
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Chad,
Jolene is a 4 year old catahoula headed for the pound because she’s too nice to be an aggressive guard dog on a chicken farm. She has the basic commands down (stay, load etc.) and is very well behaved, just too cuddly as she was raised inside with a family.
If you know anyone interested give me a call and we’ll go meet her.
November 30th, 2015
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I was still getting over losing our previous dog, a Catahoula named Jinx, after a long battle to try and save her after getting hit by a truck. It was all very traumatic for us and we were still emotionally, physically, and financially exhausted from the whole terrible experience. But we had been talking about eventually getting another dog to keep our younger dog, Boudin (Boo), company while we were both at work during the day. But it was just talk.
So, when I got the email, I think my initial response was something along the lines of “not interested.” But after a few back and forth phone calls with the gentleman playing as the intermediary with the owner of the dog, I agreed to go check her out. We met at a fruit stand in Abita Springs and I followed him to a small homestead just outside of town. After getting out of my truck I meandered around a bit, looking at a freshly-tilled field and a back porch full of large sweet potatoes laid out to cure, I was approached by a couple of dogs. I introduced myself to them and one was indeed a Catahoula; mostly black with a tan birthmark and a white chest. She was friendly but underweight with ribs showing and her ears were pretty swollen. She had obviously been scratching them a good deal. I also noticed that she must had recently had puppies, as her teats were enlarged. Her shelter appeared to be an old large dog crate in the yard which was also serving as her dog bowl. At this point, Jolene was definitely not an inside dog.
The man I followed there had been buying eggs from the owner which is how he knew about her. I talked with the owner a while and asked some general questions about her history and heath. He insisted that he wasn’t aware of any pups but that he hadn’t had her for very long. He told me he was hoping she would be a good guard dog for some of the free-ranging chickens that were wandering around us but that she wasn’t “mean enough.” I was a bit puzzled as what that meant exactly but I didn’t follow up on it. He said she was a really sweet dog and that his daughter had taken quite a shine to her but that he couldn’t keep her and just wanted her to go to a good home.
I looked her over again but was skeptical. She wasn’t quite what I had in mind and her health and history were in question. She was pretty sweet though. She looked up at me with her big dark eyes as I inspected her and she enjoyed the attention but I could tell she didn’t feel so good. I was already talking myself into it. I called my wife, half-hoping she would talk me out of it. But in retrospect, maybe I didn’t try all that hard. I put her in the crate and into the back of the truck she went.
The house was only about twenty minutes away but it began to rain as I left. By the time I made it home, it was coming down pretty hard. I let her out of the crate and Andrea came out to give her a look over and see what we were getting ourselves into. We speculated about her ears, which she couldn’t leave alone, and what needed to be done and how to integrate her into her new living arrangement. At some point, the thunder and lightning began and off into the woods she went. Despite my best efforts to find her, she was nowhere to be found. By morning, even though the storm had passed, I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that she was probably miles away by now. But as I had my coffee and looked out the kitchen window, there she stood soaking wet in the road near the trash can. I walked outside and cautiously walked toward her. She was obviously scared and confused about where she was but also hungry and looking for a friend.
Although off to a rough start, Jolene (or Jojo as we began to call her) quickly adapted to her new home. She had a lot of new rules to learn but she was always eager to please and loved the fact that her meals came like clockwork. We got her to a vet and up to date on all her basic health needs but we struggled for a long time to get her secondary ear infections under control and the primary cause of her allergies was always a mystery. Eventually we found a fairly expensive medication that worked and the obsessive repetitive behavior that she had developed from being constantly uncomfortable began to subside. As it did, she gained more weight and more of her personality began to come out. She really began to take ownership of the place and though she didn’t have a “mean” bone in her body, she was very protective when it was called for and always let us know when something wasn’t right around the place. While she and Boo were never what you might call “cuddly” with each other, they got along well enough and did enjoy the other’s company while we were gone. It was always amusing to see Boo growl at her for getting too close to him on the couch while we were home only to see them laying comfortably beside each other when we came back inside because we had forgot something. The need for Boo to show who was second in command quickly subsided once the boss was gone. But Jojo was never very impressed with Boo’s pronouncements anyway and she had a playful way of quickly taking the piss out of the whole demonstration – much to Boo’s irritation.
As time went on, Jojo became a consistent highlight of my day. No matter how work had gone or whatever my mood, when I arrived at the door she always greeted me with a profound enthusiasm. I was never allowed a simple short acknowledgement after putting my things down. She would position herself right in front of me and demand a long hello with long, direct, eye contact and much tail wagging. Every day it was as if we hadn’t seen each other in years and we had a lot of catching up to do. And if I had just spent the drive home in self-loathing for whatever personal shortcomings I may have been obsessing about on that day – as I am prone to do – she just had a way of bypassing that short circuit and reminding me that we had each other and it was all okay. There was never a single day when she wasn’t ecstatic to see me, whether it was upon waking up or returning home. And so, I couldn’t wait to see her too.
As she got older, her health wasn’t always great but we managed. In the last year or so she had gone completely deaf, not from old age, I think, but for reasons unknown, perhaps from the infections but who knows. It made some things more difficult and also made her much more vulnerable to danger but we managed and it never seemed to alter her general disposition. If there was any silver-lining, it was that she slept more soundly than she ever had.
Jojo was an expert at making the most of the day. She didn’t require much, just a sunny spot in the grass was all she needed to be happy. And you couldn’t help but be happy watching her. That was her gift. Even over the last few years, as this strange “woke” plague of evil and confusion swept down upon the land and consumed so many around us, I could look out at the yard and there would be Jojo rolling blissfully in the grass or contently watching a butterfly flutter around while she soaked up some rays. And suddenly the world made sense again; at least her little part of it that we were so blessed to occupy with her.
A few weeks ago, Jojo was severely injured by another dog and had to be put to sleep. The details are not important and the memory is still too fresh for me to care to discuss it here. Writing this is my attempt to give her the memory she deserves and hopefully some peace for myself.
I’ve had a lot of dogs over the years and they have all occupied their own special place in my heart. And each one has taken a piece of me with them when they’ve gone. But they’ve also left a good deal of themselves behind. That’s the way of life, I guess. We don’t make the rules; we’re just dropped off here to learn as we go and make the best of it. And making the best of it was something that Jolene did exceptionally well. Rest in peace, little girl. I’ll see you in the next one.
