By Donald J. Lee
Perhaps depending on your age, Upper Marlboro, Maryland, cowgirl Sandra “Pinky” Dorsey — if you’ve read an article or two about her — may remind you of Ellie May Clampett, from the once-popular TV series “The Beverly Hillbillies” (which aired from 1962 to 1971), or the lady version of Dr. John Doolittle, from the 1998 hit movie “Dr. Doolittle”. If you were around in the ’60s or the ’70s, you’d probably say, “Sandra definitely reminds me of Ellie May.” But if you were born around the late ’80s or after that, Dr. Doolittle probably is who comes to mind. In “The Beverly Hillbillies,” Ellie May (played by Donna Douglas) is the daughter of Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen), a poor mountaineer-turned multimillionaire. Ellie, a tomboy, has a unique connection with animals. She has a countless number of pets and wild animals that she communicates with as if they were humans. Dr. Doolittle (Eddie Murphy) is a veterinarian who, after sustaining a head injury in a fender bender, regains his childhood gift of being able to converse with animals as if they, too, were human beings. Dorsey, 35, gained national notoriety a few years ago as a founding member of the Cowgirls of Color, an all-black women’s rodeo team which competed primarily on the black rodeo circuit in events such as relay races. When she’s not working on her full-time job as a groomer at PetsMart, Dorsey, who aspires to return to barrel racing, is either at home, where she lives with her mother, Michele, spending quality time with her animals, including running barrels on her Quarter Horse gelding, Sandman, or she’s at her dad, Marvin’s, lying on her Hereford bull Diesel’s back or getting her hair done by her dad’s Quarter Horse, Whiskey. Yes, you read it right. Dorsey’s beautician is a horse, of course. “He’s like the toddler of the bunch. He still acts like the toddler. He’s a sweetheart, he’s goofy,” Dorsey says with a chuckle. “He’s just a joy to be around. He does my hair. He has this thing that, when I turn my back to him, he likes to play in my hair. “He takes his top lip and wiggles it through my hair to mess it up, and then he takes his mouth to soothe it out,” Dorsey says.
Dorsey recalls one day in particular on which she was hanging out with Whiskey. She made a request, one of which he was all too eager to oblige. “I’d turned around and said, ‘Ok, do my hair.’ And then he started doing my hair,” she says of the 10-year-old Quarter Horse gelding. Such communication between Dorsey and her many animals is far from surprising to her treasured aunt, Sandra Jenkins, 57, whom Dorsey is named after. “She just has a heart and a love for people and animals, but especially animals,” Jenkins says. “I can’t even really put my finger on it. My whole family grew up loving animals, my whole family. But Sandy just has this knack, this way about her, when it comes to animals.” If the phrase “the apples don’t fall far from the tree” was a person — or a duo — the two Sandras’ images would appear. Sandra Dorsey credits her parents for passing onto her their love for animals, but she really has a special admiration for her Aunt Sandra Jenkins and the amazing connection she grew up watching that elder Sandra have with critters. “Growing up, she was Ellie May and I was (Ellie May’s) Granny,” Dorsey recalls, noting that her aunt, at one point, had a variety of animals, including a pet raccoon named Harry (whose name changed to Harriet, when it was later discovered that he was actually a she). “One of our favorite shows was ‘The Beverly Hillbillies.’”
Nowadays, “Aunt Sandy” just has a single pet, Pep, believed to be a poodle mix. And she gets just as much fulfillment — if not more — from reading the stories under the headlines her niece continues to pile up as she did when she, herself, was creating amazing bonds with animals. Dorsey’s Aunt Sandy is also tickled pink as she recalls one particular visit she received from the younger, more improved version of herself. “She came over here one Christmas Eve and she had a lizard on her neck, but her braids were covering it. I had about lost it!” the elder Sandra says as she bursts into laughter at the memory. “I went to give her a hug like I always do, and I saw this little tail thing hanging out, and I was done,” Dorsey’s aunt says. “My chest got so tight. And I got away from her so fast, and she was just laughing.” Sandra Jenkins says her niece had “a little bird that had a foul mouth, and I’ll leave it at that,” she adds, again, laughing. “I may have had raccoons or whatever coming up, but the stuff that she does (with animals) just blows me away. She’s like a little Miss Doolittle because she talks to them just like you and I are talking, and they understand her. “She’s fearless, I don’t know how else to put it,” Dorsey’s aunt continues. “She’s living out what her dreams are.” Dorsey says her relationships with each of her animals are different. There’s a special thing that she has with each. It’s because each has his – or her— own personality.
There’s her dad’s horse, Gunsmoke, named for the classic TV Western. Gunsmoke is a 15-year-old Appaloosa-draft horse mix who stands 18 hands high. “He’s just a big teddy bear. I can say, ‘Give me a kiss, and he’ll give me a kiss.” Then there’s one of her own horses, Justice, a 10-year-old Appendix-bred flea- bitten grey gelding who stands 17 hands high. When it comes to other people, he’s a bully. But when it come to Dorsey, he’s “a sweetheart.” Dorsey’s dad has another horse, Joker, a 23-year-old Paint. “He’s just silly. That’s why I named him Joker. He likes to pick with people and just be silly.” Joker and Gunsmoke are hanging buddies. Dorsey taught all of her family’s horses to take selfies. The moment she pulls out her camera phone, the horses will lay their heads on her shoulder and pose for the pictures. A fan favorite whose videos are often posted on Facebook is Diesel, Dorsey’s 4- year-old bull she raised from a calf. And get this. Diesel has bred with Carmen, Dorsey’s nearly 3-year-old Hereford- Charolais-crossed cow. And Diesel, who doesn’t need a ring in his nose to control him when he’s being led around with a halter and lead rope, still acts like a big puppy, not a raging bull as you’d expect from any full-grown bull, especially one who breeds. Speaking of Carmen, she’s a character. “Carmen is just very demanding,” Dorsey says. “When she wants something, she’ll let you know. And she will not stop until you give it to her.” Sandman, a 16-year-old gelding, is a horse she definitely treasures. Though Dorsey had been performing on him for seven years, it was just two years ago that she bought him from her friend Ray Lockamy, who also coached her in relay events. Dorsey is proud of Sandman because he’s had some big horse shoes to fill. “Ever since I put Fat Boy down last Christmas Eve, Sandman kind of filled in that void of not having him,” she says.
Other horses, and additional animals, Dorsey has between her two parents’ homes are: Midnight, a 12-year-old Quarter Horse gelding; Codie, a 20-year-old Quarter Horse mare; Aurora, a 15-years-old Tennessee Walker mare; and two bunnies, Bugs and Babs, which she keeps for her own niece. Those are just a few of Dorsey’s animals. She has dogs, a pot-bellied pig, and a chicken that follows her out of the driveway as she heads out for a ride on one of the horses. Dorsey says while she respects the entertainment value of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” she’s more intrigued by a side of the TV show that perhaps everybody else in TV land, including other animal lovers, has overlooked. “Mainly when I look at the shows, it’s not always that I relate. But I’m actually dissecting the show, how they would get the animals to do certain things. I watch the animals’ body languages,” Dorsey says. “I look to see if I could get mine to do it,” she adds. “I really work from how my animals are. It’s more of a trial and error, to see what works. What may work for Sandman may not work for Codie. I have to look at what animal I am dealing with at the time.” While Dorsey may have to take several different approaches to get the desired responses from each of her respective animals, she eventually achieves her goals –bonding with each one as they show human-like intelligence and a love that matches, if not exceeds, humans’ kind of love.
(Donald Lee is a Dallas-based freelance writer and copy editor who also works with Texas Longhorn steers in Fort Worth, Texas. He can be reached at [225] 773-2248 or leedonaldj@gmail.com)