By Rob Blizard
Legendary singer, songwriter and actress Jeannie Seely is a busy animal advocate both on and off the stage at one of America's most popular musical venues: the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. An Opry member since 1967, Jeannie, known as "Miss Country Soul," regularly reminds audiences not to leave pets in hot cars and to bring them inside during winter and summer weather extremes. She also frequently calls radio and television stations to deliver the same messages.
"I like to encourage people to take better care of animals and I take every opportunity I can to raise other people's awareness," says the multiple Grammy Award winner and only Pennsylvania native ever to join the Opry. Whether she is performing at the Opry, in Dollywood, or on a concert stage somewhere in America, she makes this effort for animals.
Jeannie says that her HSUS membership has helped educate her about proper treatment of animals, leading to her support of our animal protection programs. She notes that she began supporting the organization for many reasons, including, she laughs, the HSUS return address labels she received, which resulted in two benefits. She was able to let people know she is a proud supporter of animal rights and she could stop ordering her own labels.
Meanwhile, her education has led the sweet-voiced singer to speak out for animals who can't speak for themselves.
"I have gotten in trouble for speaking to people about the conditions or behavior that they inflict on their animals. I am not shy in the least," says the performer who broke the so-called "calico curtain" by being the first woman to wear a miniskirt on the Grand Ole Opry and regularly has traveled to perform for troops at military sites.
"When people chain their animals or leave them in cars, I frequently say something to them. Sometimes the people don't like it, but that's okay with me," she says. "Once I saw a dog chained and left outside in some stifling weather. I typed a little note and stuck it on the door. I wrote that I didn't want to upset the pet owner but that I was upset every day by watching the dog suffer in the hot sun. I pointed out that there was a shade tree in the yard that might be a better spot for the dog and was happy to see the animal moved a couple of days later. I don't know what's the matter with people, but some of them just don't think from the animal's point of view."
Another time, she chided a woman upset with her dog who would not stand still while on an asphalt surface during a sweltering Tennessee day.
"I told her to take off her shoes and see how much she liked standing barefoot on hot asphalt!" Jeannie remembers proudly.
Lifelong Loves
Singing for audiences since age 11, Jeannie says her concern for animals goes back to her childhood in Pennsylvania.
"I have always cared about animals. One dog in particular was our family dog. He was special to all of us. His name was Tippy and he was a sweet German shepherd mix. I was the youngest child out of four, so the dog, like everything else in my childhood, was always somebody else's, never just mine," Jeannie says.
"Tippy was really another child in the family. Everyone loved him. I still remember how he walked us up to the corner to catch the school bus and how he would be there waiting for us after the school bus dropped us off at the end of the day."
When Jeannie finished school, she adopted a collie puppy while on a trip to West Virginia. But she ultimately left the dog, Shawn, with her parents as she felt that he would have a better life while Jeannie was working long hours to start her music career in Los Angeles in the 1960s.
A Maltese and the Mandrells
"For many years, I didn't have pets because I spent so much time on the road traveling. I didn't think it would be fair to the animals. But I always managed to get my fix by enjoying other people's pets," Jeannie says.
But all that changed as Jeannie became one of country music's preeminent performers.
"In the 1980s, I got Love, a Maltese, at a time when I could settle down more. And I had my own tour bus. Love's mother was a dog belonging to Irlene Mandrell, one of the Mandrell sisters."
Last year, Jeannie lost Shadpoke, a shih tzu who was just a few days shy of turning 16 and was named after a term her late mother used for a ragamuffin. Shadpoke was an occasional feature on the Grand Ole Opry stage and during tour appearances with Jeannie. The dog also traveled many miles with her in her tour bus, as she drove across the country for her shows. Occasionally, Jeannie reports, he would receive fan mail at the Opry.
On one occasion, Jeannie went onstage dressed up as Shadpoke in a costume her sister made so Jeannie and her dog could go out on stage together for Halloween. After she performed her regular portion of the Opry's nightly show, she changed into the costume. Later, she and Shadpoke both came out after one of her fellow performers sang "a song with lyrics about a woman who was putting on the dog when she goes out at night," Jeannie says.
Helping Hands
These days, Jeannie shares her life with one dog, Cheyenne, a shih tzu who came from another home. Jeannie says she doesn't believe that anyone can truly own an animal so she tells Cheyenne, "I'm your mama. That other lady was your owner. I didn't buy you. I just paid that other lady to let you go."
Lately, she and some neighbors have been feeding a stray cat in the neighborhood whom she has named Penelope after a friend of hers.
Jeannie admits to being a little crazy about pets. In the past, she has pushed her dogs in an old-fashioned baby carriage.
"I know people think I'm just some eccentric little lady who pushes her dogs down the road in a carriage, but that's okay," she says. "I love spoiling my pups."
To help companion animals who don't have a home, she takes dog food to the local shelter at Christmas and other times. She says she'd like to volunteer there but would find it too upsetting to think that she could not give all of the animals there a permanent home.
Citizen Seely
In her spare time, Jeannie says she stays busy trying to find homes for homeless dogs who find their way to or near her home. She lives along Nashville's Cumberland River on a dead-end street where people will occasionally "dump their pets, just like they were trash."
"My efforts are not official," she says, "but they help. I have a little network of my own. And I try to match dogs to people's needs. Like if someone wants a dog who's already house-trained, then I suggest an older dog who's clearly lived in another home."
These days, she also is doing more stage work. "A friend of mine wrote a play in which all the characters are dogs," she explains. "Now that I can do more of what I want to do, I want to undertake projects like this."
When asked if she has ever written or sung a song about animals, she mentions that as a youngster she used to croon the 1940s Red Foley classic "Old Shep," a song about a boy and his dog. Its lyrics, which focus on a boy who must shoot his old dog in a time before people took animals to a veterinarian for euthanasia, are among those song lyrics that remind her of the strength of the human-animal bond and that motivate her efforts to help animals today:
"Old Shep, he has gone/ Where the good doggies go/ And no more with Old Shep will I roam/ But if dogs have a heaven/ There's one thing I know/ Old Shep has a wonderful home."
Posted July 13, 2006
