RECOLLECTIONS OF JESS
It was December 9th, 1995 when we saw the ad in the newspaper. The ad said "Border Collie puppy for sale." Not knowing how long the ad had been up I was worried that it was too late and the puppy was already adopted. So I was very excited to learn that she was still there and wanted to hurry into Victoria immediately. The weather was awful - freezing rain and the roads were rather slippery making for somewhat hazardous driving conditions but we made it safely into town. Anne, Jess's owner welcomed us in. Then we met Jess. We fell in love with her instantly. She was all over us and particularly liked Peter. She was the cutest little puppy and very excited to meet us. We stayed for quite a while chatting with Anne and letting Jess get used to us. We wanted to take Jess home that same day and Anne agreed. We had arranged to stop in at the vet clinic on the way home to get Jess examined. Our previous dog had been chronically ill most of his life and we wanted to make sure that Jess was in good health. After pronouncing Jess to be in perfect health, I remember the vet saying to us "you guys really deserve this dog". So Jess joined our family. She was originally called Dart. Although we liked the name well enough we wanted something more traditional and decided on 'Jess'.
Being a Border Collie, Jess had a lot of energy. During her first year with us she had to have at least two long walks every day on the trail behind our house. We often used one of those flexible leashes and she would run back and forth like a horizontal yo yo. For every kilometer we walked she must have covered five. However as energetic as she was she was a very good dog. She rarely got into mischief and always obeyed us when we corrected her. She was very smart and if she was chewing on something forbidden I only had to give her one of her toys as an alternative and she would chew on that instead.
She was also very language proficient - she seemed to understand almost everything we said to her. We could talk to her almost like she was a person. One time when she was still a small puppy and tended to follow me around a lot, she started to follow me as I walked towards our bedroom. Suddenly I noticed that she was not beside me but was sitting in the hall watching me. I realized that she thought I was going to put her in her crate (which was on the deck off the bedroom). In fact I was actually headed for the den so I said to her "No. I'm not going to the bedroom. I'm going to the den." And she immediately ran up to join me. We took Jess to the obligatory doggie obedience classes. She loved going and was always very excited when we arrived. Our friend Judy would sometimes be there and if Jess spotted her she was almost beside herself. If we were in the midst of a lesson Judy had to sneak in so that Jess wouldn't see her.
After she passed the first set of classes there was no need to continue but we decided that she enjoyed the socializing so we enrolled her for another session. Halfway through that session during a heeling exercise I noticed that Jess was walking in a manner that suggested she was bored. Imagine a teenager who is reluctantly accompanying a parent and making if very obvious that she would rather be anywhere else than there. So I said to Jess "Are you bored? Do you want to stop?" Well I got a look that spoke volumes. I thought I was imagining things so I asked her again a few minutes later and got that same "what do you think?" look. We finished that lesson and quit doggie obedience. Her apparent understanding of English always astonished me. On another occasion we were playing with Jess and her family and friends on our field. She always shadowed her mother and didn't like it when we would take her mother aside to rest for a bit. This one afternoon after we put Jess's mother Trey in her crate, Jess just kept barking and barking at us demanding we release her mother. Finally I said to Jess "We're not letting your mother out yet so you might as well just go play with the others." As soon as I said this Jess ran off across the field and joined the other dogs.
Because she was so smart she was also rather imaginative. She was very 'sound sensitive'. What I mean is that she found quite a variety of sounds disturbing. One day when she was still quite young Peter took her for a walk down a nearby road. There were two old dairy cows in the field beside this road. Jess couldn't see them because of the hedges. Suddenly one old cow let out a very loud and shocking bellow. This frightened Jess so much she immediately wanted to run home. After that Jess could not abide the sound of cows. Even the sound of cows mooing on the TV would send her scurrying from the room. Strangely she didn't mind the sound of fireworks or lightning but she didn't like the sound of seals barking or slapping their flippers on the water. If I took her to Tower Point park she was always reluctant to take the trail along the shore. She remembered the one time when the seals made noises that frightened her!
Jess was also quite manipulative. When she was a puppy we would play ball with her while we watched TV in the evening. We would sit on the den couch and bounce the ball to her and she would catch it. Then she would bring the ball back in and place it beside one of us. It was very cute the way she would tippy toe in and ever so quietly place the ball at our feet. Sometimes she would put the ball in a different spot and we wouldn't notice because we were watching TV. Then she would take her position at the den door and bark for us to throw the ball again. One evening as she sat in the den doorway waiting for one of us to bounce the ball she kept looking at Peter and then looking at a spot across the room. This was her way of telling us where the ball was. Peter got up and went to look for the ball but it wasn't in the spot indicated by Jess. He looked all around and finally found the ball tucked just under the couch right by where he had been sitting. Jess had tricked him! She also enjoyed making many of our B&B guests play with her. One morning she managed to trick several ladies into abandoning their breakfasts to play with her. Manipulative? Well maybe just a little.
Jess was a full participant in our Bed & Breakfast business. She loved meeting new people and they loved meeting her. In fact for quite a few of the guests she was the main attraction and much more popular than Peter or myself. Many's the time arriving guests would quickly greet us and then ask "Where's Jess?" She even received some correspondence and one little girl gave her a book that was a story about a Border Collie named Jess.
As a pure bred Border Collie Jess had the herding instinct. When she was still quite young we took her to a one day training clinic being held during the Metchosin Sheep Dog Trials. The trainer put her into a small pen that held six old ewes. These ewes were what is called 'dog broke' which meant that they were used to dogs and being herded. It also meant that they could tell if a dog was trained to herd or a novice. Amazingly Jess managed to move those sheep from one corner of the pen to the other. She held them there but then she got nervous and began to bark and jump up and down - as if she were saying "now what do I do?". The ewes were staring her down. They knew that she was a novice. The trainer told us that she had the instinct and could be trained to herd if we were interested. We didn't have any sheep at the time and didn't pursue it. Some years later we did acquire a few pet sheep. Although we never had Jess properly trained we could get her to move the sheep but only if we had her on a leash and encouraged her to move towards the sheep rather than run away from them which she was more inclined to do. There was one time of the year that made Jess very uncomfortable. It was when the local sheep farmers separated the lambs from the ewes. The ewes would spend several days constantly bleating for their lambs. I think Jess must have sensed their distress and was always rather agitated during this time.
Jess loved going for rides in the car or truck. In the truck she sat on the front seat between Peter and I. She would lean forward panting and staring at the traffic. You could almost hear her saying "Go faster! faster!" If she were a human I think she would have been a race car driver. One time we drove to Swartz Bay ferry terminal with Jess eagerly leaning forward all the way. Then we parked in line to wait for the ferry. After a few minutes sitting there Jess suddenly started barking. She was used to us stopping briefly at intersections but she couldn't understand why we were just sitting there not moving forward this time.
We have so many good memories of times we shared with Jess. She was a really special dog and we'll not find another like her. I think she had a good life with us and when the end, which I dreaded, finally did come it was a good ending. Jess was born on September 11, 1995. On April 15, 2012 with Peter and me by her side, Jess died. We'll always remember her.
Here are PHOTOS of Jess.
CLICK on the thumbnails below to enlarge and get details.
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