Animal Magnetism

Introduction

Purring, deep rumbling, is my first memory of life. Mickey, a long-haired tiger cat, provided the purr as he slept in my cradle. Mother called him an Angora. These days people call them Persians.

Looking back, I realize that my whole life has been lived with and through animals. Other people’s significant dates include first kiss, first physical congress and attendant drama, first marriage, first child, first job—well, you get the idea. For me, it’s first cat, first dog, first horse, first cow, and so on. And each of them taught me something.

This book is about the many lessons I’ve learned, the animals who have loved me, endured me, and taught me, and my bottomless love for them in return.

The past rides on my shoulder like the parrot my paternal grandmother kept. What a chatterbox that bird was. Never on good terms with the old biddy, one summer I taught her parrot to say unchristian words. The past is like that: whispering, chattering, squawking, and often the very things you’d prefer not to hear or remember.

As Mickey was first, let me start there with what he taught me. He could run, jump, hear, smell, and probably taste better than I could. I’d crawl on the floor to try and catch him. He’d let me reach his luxuriant tail, then hop away. Taunting me gave him great pleasure.

Mickey taught me how to play, and how to see the world through all of my senses.

Once I could walk without falling down, my life became an endless stream of adventures. Back then, I lacked a sharp sense of time passing and had no concept of deadlines. It was a delicious state that modern life quickly obliterates. Mickey’s timeframe was my timeframe. My goal is to return to that early delight, that freedom from the clock, and to be more like cats. It’s a formidable task.

Mickey and I took our constitutionals, Mother’s term. Hers covered more ground: four miles in the morning and two or three at sunset. Mickey and I loitered under lilacs in bloom. He’d leap straight up to catch a black swallowtail, which usually got away. We’d climb maples and oaks. We’d jump into leaf piles in the fall, which meant that Dad had to rake them all up again. He never minded, and a few times he jumped in with us. Mickey played catch with my jack balls. We’d read together and we always slept together. I still need a cat for a good night’s sleep.

My Aunt Mimi (Louise to those of you who have read the “Six of One” series) had many dogs throughout her life. She had a lovely Boston Bull, as large as a boxer, named Butch. Butch and Mickey coexisted, since one sister was usually in the company of the other. And the three of us were fast friends, showing that different species can indeed get along.

My aunt conceived of herself as the Virgin Mary but she had also conceived two daughters. Mother called her Divergent Mary. Her dogs played as important a role in my life as my own pets did. Usually I trained her dogs, too. Never could train Aunt Mimi.

One day when I was eight, Mother took me by the hand. Mickey, now an elderly gentleman, was failing. She placed him in his little crate and we waited atop Queen Street Hill for the bus. Only rich people owned more than one car. Dad needed ours. The veterinarian’s office squatted close to the Mason-Dixon Line. I remember walking into the tidy white clapboard building, a sense of foreboding filtering through me. I was determined not to cry.

Mother accompanied Mickey. I languished in the waiting room. When she came out, Mickey was wrapped in a lemon-yellow towel in his crate.

Once home, the sun still bright, we buried him under the large blooming crabapple tree up by the old pasture. The air carried all the messages of spring, Mickey’s favorite season. Not until the last pat of the shovel did Mom give way. I let loose, too.

Mickey taught me my first great lesson in life, which is that one animal or person can touch many others. I’d thought only of my relationship with Mickey, not Mother’s. Not once did it occur to me that she loved him before I came into the world. He was her shadow then.

To this day I don’t like lemon-colored towels. I adore tiger cats and crabapple trees. A tiger cat is sitting with me now. If I can find the money this spring I am going to realize a dream and line one of my farm roads with crabapples. Mickey would approve.

Not all the animals I have learned from were mine. And some of the most profound lessons came from spending time with people who were blessed with the gift to understand and appreciate God’s creatures.

My grandfather kept foxhounds given to him by his brother, Bob, who was a kennelman of the Green Spring Valley Hunt. PopPop Harmon returned from World War I a far different man than when he’d entered it. As long as Big Mimi was alive, she held him together. She died in 1948 and he went to pieces, drinking enough to float a battleship. Couldn’t hold a job so he made a little money entering hunting contests.

When I visited, he put the liquor aside. Not until I was an adult did I fathom how he protected me from his affliction and what it must have cost him to do so. If I was especially good I could eat with the foxhounds and sleep with them, too. They were American foxhounds (along with some Crossbreds), which is what I now have in my kennels for the Oak Ridge Hunt Club. Through PopPop’s hounds I learned the basics of canine communication, which is quite sophisticated.

For instance, a well-mannered person says “Excuse me” or “Pardon me” if someone blocks their path. A dog bumps another dog and, given the hierarchical nature of canines, the younger or lesser dog moves. Young and small, I had to gain the respect of the hounds. If a hound didn’t move out of my way, I bumped him.

When a hound or house dog brought me a toy and I asked the animal to release it, if he didn’t, I’d chastise him. Asking for the toy is a signal to play. Sometimes I pretended I wanted that slobbery toy and I would chase the dog. Then I’d stop, turn my back, and walk away. The dog would follow, toy in mouth. This would go on until one of us pooped out, and it always made the dog so happy.

Spontaneous play draws the participants closer together. This is one of the things humans lose as they get older. Given all the responsibilities people acquire in life, it’s difficult to be spontaneous. Dogs, cats, and horses don’t punch a time clock. They don’t need to turn in reports or expense accounts. Every now and then it’s good to walk away from whatever burdens you, pick up a ball, and throw it for the dog.

Tone of voice matters. If a dog speaks low to another dog—not a growl, just a low tone—all is usually well. If the pitch rises, it means excitement. The danger bark is distinctive and doesn’t sound like either of the above. People often raise their voices when talking to their dogs or children. The dog gets fired up, jumps up or runs around, and the person then tells the dog to stop. But the person started it. It’s not the dog’s fault.

Each species has its own sophisticated communication system. Animals learn ours but we rarely learn theirs, and then we punish them for not understanding, or we call them stupid.

There’s no such thing as a dumb dog, but God knows there are continents filled with dumb humans.

Sometimes I am one of those dumb humans, so I know whereof I speak. I learned how hounds work in a pack and saw that humans do, too. Hounds’ expansive ability to love carried me through many a crisis, including PopPop’s death. The hounds knew he was dying and I learned very early to trust their diagnosis. If you know what to look for, you, too, can see.

My hounds knew before I did when my best friend, Dr. Herbert Jones, the sustaining love of my life, was failing. When he died—my Gibraltar shattered, sinking into an ocean of grief—I went to my hounds and slept beside them, right in the kennel. It gave me strength to face the next day.

On my farm, if a hound passes its prime, he or she stays on. They’ve shown me that retirement isn’t a good thing for hounds and is probably worse for people. So I find jobs for them.

All throughout my life, I’ve observed, tried to be flexible, tried to learn new languages. My first horse, not really mine but a draft horse, a big gray Percheron, taught me to think like a prey animal. Being a medium-sized predator, I found this difficult. Suzie Q, the horse, was better at understanding me than I was at understanding her.

Franklin, Mother Brown’s parrot, possessed a wicked sense of humor. Bird intelligence can be frightening when they cock their heads and glare at you with those glittering eyes. The pterodactyl is never far behind. Franklin, who liked me, would set up a ruckus in his cage so Mamaw would let him out and we’d go around together. Mickey was not allowed to visit her. Just as well, or Franklin would have spoken his last line. What a chatterbox he was.

While trying to understand Franklin’s mind I studied him when he was watching other birds. Those brains are small but filled with dense wiring. I still do not know how they communicate in flocks. Oh, sure, I know Canada geese honk, but there’s more to it than that. Usually, I do know what they’re saying in general: the call note which is a kind of “howdy do,” the true song sometimes sung in duet but so seamlessly that people assume it is one bird, the “git out” curse and the true fear note which can cut through steel. It seems birds and other animals can predict the weather. Understanding the fear note and watching birds and other creatures take to high ground helped me to get my stock to high ground when a hurricane swept through after the weatherman predicted it would not go inland.

I owe talkative Franklin a lot. Thanks to Franklin, I have a strong suspicion that humans, freed from technology and again utilizing our senses, could communicate in flocks and without much fuss. We could also send messages across the oceans without ever picking up a phone or touching a computer.

Humans can do this. The natives of Australia can send messages to one another wherever they are in the world. But we can, too. Haven’t you ever felt a strong compulsion to call someone? You do and the individual says, “I was just thinking about you.” Or they are in distress and your call comes at a crucial time. Whether we can reclaim this faded ability and exercise it at will, I don’t know. It may even be possible for different species to do this. You may be able to pick up something from your dog. I don’t know, but it seems possible. Whenever there is deep emotion, there’s a connection.

This book is about the sweep and sweepings of a life lived close to nature and lived with deep respect and sometimes fear of earth’s other residents. I’ve looked a bobcat in the eye and recognized my better. I’ve come up on a bear and felt gratitude that he decided to run. I’ve paid my last respects to beloved hounds, horses, and cats with both sorrow and joy, and felt profoundly grateful that I could ease their passage into the beyond, something I couldn’t do for my own mother.

Given that this involves my family and my human friends, there are sexual peccadilloes, gambling problems, drinking problems (not mine, I can be stupid all by myself, I don’t need help), catnip addictions. There’s thievery, which is practiced as much by the dogs as the cats, plus a few folks are doing it, too, and foxes: lots of foxes, most especially Sardine, who, as you might suspect, likes sardines. She likes my chickens, too.

There is a criminal chicken. Shocking, but you’ll see we aren’t the only creatures who can be hateful.

There’s a Catholic fox who lives near an Episcopalian fox, with interactions that remind me of my own family, for I have heard heated exchanges of a less than charitable nature. If there aren’t foxes in heaven I don’t want to go. Of course, I may not be going anyway. I’m a bad Christian, but I’m too old to be a good anything else.

Bad Christian or not, much of what I am is a result of a life with and close to animals. I hope this book does them justice, for they have done right by me.