This morning, on Sound Cloud, I disclosed that I met with the Russian Ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, last September. Ambassador Kislyak contacted me because he saw online that I had a dog named Red and he is an animal lover and he assumed Red came from Russia.

We did meet on the farm. We did not talk politics, or discuss Hillary Clinton’s e-mails or Donald Trump. I was not a “surrogate” of any kind for any reason. Foreign ambassadors visit me often here at Bedlam Farm, my blog is read all over the world.

I am told that Steve Bannon is an avid reader of my books on dogs and rural life. He was especially fond of Orson, my border collie who bit three people.

Perhaps the Ambassador knew that.

Ambassador Kislyak and I had much in common.

He grew up with a donkey in Kiev, the Ukraine, and my grandmother grew up in Kiev.

He had a big bag of carrots with him. He fell for the donkeys big time. He was disappointed to learn Red was Irish, and that Fate was from Wales. I told him my grandmother, Minnie Cohen, was raised in Kiev, but he didn’t seem to know about her and wasn’t that interested. He said they often thought of emigres to the United States as traitors.

He didn’t want to talk about the Ukraine. I heard him muttering something under his breath to an aide about making sure I was the right Katz. But I’m sure it wasn’t a mistake.

I took him to the Round House Cafe for lunch (his bodyguards had some vegetarian chili) and I waited for him to ask me about one of the 24 books I had written. But when I mentioned them, he said he had never read one of my books and did not know I was a writer. He seemed surprised, a bit uneasy.  He thought I was an animal trainer and dog breeder. It was awkward for a moment, but we got past that.

Chewing on a blueberry scone, he asked me if I believed Russia and America could get along. Sure, I said, we’re having a fine visit right now. We are all people. We all love our dogs. The visit seemed perfectly natural to me. He visited senators and surrogates, why not me on my farm? I mean, my blog has a lot of readers.

I did have this strange feeling I might not be the right Jon Katz. There is another one, I know, who lives in Washington and writes about politics there, and another who is a famous scientist. But we went ahead with our lunch anyway.

You may be wondering why I did not mention this meeting before, as I have occasionally commented on politics, and the answer is really quite simple. Ambassador Kislyak was talking to me in the context of Red and the donkeys, I wasn’t even thinking about politics or the election campaign.

The ambassador fed some carrots to the donkeys, visited with Chloe, who tried to eat his jack and pick his wallet out of his pocket to chew on it, and he laughed out loud when Rosemary, one of the Romneys, chased Fate away from the hay feeder. He thought it was a riot, he laughed so hard his jowls wiggled.

From  Wales, eh?, he said. He could not get enough of Fate. I love baby animals, he said, I watch baby animal videos on You Tube all the time. You too?, I asked. So does my wife.

I did promise to be straightforward with you, as I have pledged to be open on the blog.

Ambassador Kislyak and I are still in touch, he texted me several times about a problem he was having with  his dog, an Alsatian who attacks people and rips other animals to pieces. Did I know a good breeder? I don’t know any breeders to recommend, I said, that isn’t my line.

It isn’t his fault, the Ambassador said, the dog was almost surely abused.  He did eat a Pekingese near the French embassy, he said, he had to get out of there in a hurry. Aren’t dogs just wonderful?, he said, chuckling warmly.

Ambassador Kislyak had contacted an animal psychic and communicator – he knew I had written about them once or twice – and asked her for advice. She told him the dog loved him and that he was doing the right thing. The dogs, she said,  was an old Communist re-born, come back to life to restore the glory and might of the old Soviet Union.

Think of her as a symbol, she said, and let him sleep near your bed at night. He should not ever be corrected or trained, she told him. He had suffered enough.

I liked the Ambassador, he had a good sense of humor, and he was a good listener, which surprised me.

I told him I was not a trainer, he ought to go out and pay for one and get some real help for the dog, before he bit the wrong person or ate the wrong dog, if you know what I mean. He seemed disappointed, but moved on. I don’t think it was what he wished to hear.

He gave me his card and asked me to call if I ever heard anything he should know up here on the farm. I said the only thing I ever heard up here was complaints about the weather and grumping about Washington. And frankly, people didn’t like Hillary Clinton all that much, there were Donald Trump signs sprouting everywhere, like dandelions.

Really, he said, his eyebrows rising almost to the top of his head. Let’s have another cup of coffee. He told me Hillary Clinton had some calluses on her feet that nobody knew about, she was getting him trimmed later in the week. She got them on her Stair Master, he said, smiling.

She used to come up here all the time when she was a Senator, I said. One of the farmers here told me she didn’t like cows very much. Oh?, he said, gulping down his scone. Can you speak into my tie about that? But I didn’t know much more.

Really, I said, impressed. How did you know about the calluses? He just chuckled some more. The animal communicator tells me, he said, guffawing loudly,  the jowls swinging again, causing heads to turn in the Round House. You never hear real guffaws there.

It’s good to be out of Washington, he said. It’s a cesspool down there. I went to shake his head when he got into his limousine, but the two bodyguards blocked me. He waved from the car. “Say goodbye to the dogs,” he said, and was off.

I want to say that I recuse myself from commenting in any way about the Intelligence services, Washington, Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, Donald Trump’s attitudes about women or any other Russian-American intrigues. I see now that I am compromised.

The ambassador said he wanted to come back up here in the Spring with his dog to see if he would like to herd sheep. Red shivered. Let’s talk about it, I said, waving goodbye.

You have my e-mail address?

But he was already far down the road.