The Story of Jenny Lind 2

I did look for a picture from her puppyhood, and they weren't in the fairly easy place I'd hoped to find them. The only other possibility now is an old computer, buried in the bottom of a box, buried under more boxes, in my new apartment. Perhaps they will surface, but for now, you will just have to imagine. When I got her, she was maybe five pounds, and very very wriggly. She stayed wriggly for many years. The slightest touch would send her into paroxysms of delight. To confess, I was disappointed that she wasn't as cuddly as her cuteness and size led me to believe. One evening, I was sitting in the backseat of a crowded car, and she had to sit on my lap. It was the first and only time she was cuddleable.

What she lacked in cuddleability, she made up for in playful and joyous energy. I immediately got a crate/kennel for her, and then soon got a large playpen that stood in the center of the house, with the crate inside. It was in the center of the house because that made sense, kept the cats separated from her but close by, and was the only space without carpeting. My method of bathroom training was to take her out often, hourly if I could. At night she slept in the crate with the door closed, and with a blanket covering to make it cosy. I got the idea that for a year, she would not be loose in the house unless I was with her, and she would sleep at night in the crate. After a year, we would see. For that year, she went almost everywhere with me, to work one day a week, in the car, on walks. She never ever chewed on anything that wasn't hers. She had a lot of toys. I'd read that if you get twenty toys, and rotate them ten at a time, it will help a dog be amused and non-destructive. (When I moved to Burbank, I brought her large basket of toys, but I did throw away the small bits of almost unidentifiable pieces of her collection.) After a few months, the playpen was packed away, and she was sleeping in her crate, with her bed, at night. At the end of the year, the crate too was packed away, and she (and the cats) had the run of the house, with never an incident or disaster. My guess is that it wasn't my expert training at all, but Jenny Lind's close connection to what her people did, and her natural emulation of us. She never (oh, well, rarely) begged at table. She sits before she eats. She never takes anything that isn't hers. She's really a wonderful dog, and it is her natural self. What a gift. Not that she doesn't have a fatal flaw. She does, and more about that another time.

A toy story. Her second Christmas was one in a houseful of family. Perhaps not all at the same time, but over the course of a day or two, there were, I count in my memory, sixteen of us. The floor under the tree was piled with presents, almost as if everyone gave everyone else a present. That would be sixteen times fifteen, I think, or 240 wrapped packages! It wasn't quite like that, but I think 240 packages is close. For one reason or another, including playing in the snow a lot, we didn't open presents for a day or two after everyone arrived, so the packages stayed in a pile in the living room. I might have said something the first time she sniffed at the tower of temptation, but that was all. She was much more interested in playing with the children, and going from person to person for attention than she was in those inert packages. On the second of this, I was sitting by the fireside, and I noticed her carefully and delicately searching the gifts. After a long time, she chose one, and carried it in to me. We opened it together, and it was hers! It was a big Jolly Ball, made for horses to play with. It's hard rubber, and cannot be deflated - well, almost cannot.

This was her favorite toy. It could be thrown, she could carry it in her jaws and swing it back and forth. it could be kicked. She worked for over a year on getting her teeth into it and although she couldn't puncture it, she did manage to flatten it. And still it was her favorite toy, and a suggestion, "Go get your ball," would always produce this. At the end of ten years, it was filthy, the handle had been broken in a few places, and it was a ball in name only. With a somewhat sad sigh, I threw it away. The end of a time of our lives.