Foul

Other than the smells of feces and liver with garlic, the smell of chicken. Betty could tell, almost before the lady reached the front door, that she brought home a cooked chicken from the store. And that's when the tracking began. The proximity from the lady's leg to Betty's nose was never more than 8 inches. All night long.

Listen, she sits when told to sit. Barely cares about the early morning newspaper boy or the late afternoon mailman. She is content with the life and the sleeping places she has created for herself. But when the smell of cooked poultry enters the room, you would think Betty was up all night on cocaine. Every moment a heightened sense of where, tracking of all associated with the smells, no napping just tracking.

She sits when told to sit. Because frankly, she hates standing. But she will sneak that bird off of your plate faster than you can tell her to 'heel'. The relationship of Beagle to Bird came before you found her on a dusty country road. And will continue, until a chicken bone stuck in throat takes our sweet Betty to her grave. Because, good lord, if there is a chicken bone anywhere within 15 miles, Betty will find it.

Seeing the Light

Ralph was an idiot for a flashlight. He memorized where they were kept, whimpered at the drawer handle until someone opened it and pulled one out. Inevitably, the first one wouldn't work. Nor the second, the third or the fourth. By the time the fifth and sixth were tried, whoever had ventured into that drawer began to suspect within the drawer lay a mystical land of light-less torches. But it's always the tiny ones at the bottom that work. And so Ralph would make a gleeful little sound and wait for circles of light to appear on the wooden floor, arcing around him, over and off at odd angles.

Betty was mystified by this ridiculous display. It's light - you can't catch it, ridiculous boy! He would chase in circles and jump and scamper about, and she would lie on the couch, dozing. Unless these shenanigans occurred upstairs. Scampering about where the people and the dogs sleep at night, particularly when we are getting ready to sleep...well that's just too much.

This night, she had to step in and tell him, very firmly, to knock it the heck off. She got yelled at, of course. But the point was made. Because if the flashlight game got the point that Betty intervened, then it was always ended by the people. So order over the house remained firmly in Betty's control. And reaffirmed just in time, because she was absolutely exhausted from such a tumultuous day.

Returning

Betty felt older and wiser as she reached four years.  She wore it gracefully, but was exasperated by Ralph and his incessant playing.  He'd already stolen the little girl's affection, having followed them home and looking scared and hungry and absolutely tolerating the girl's unquenchable thirst for carrying a dog like a clutch and dressing it up like a penguin or an elf.  You would think that with the immense amount of indoor urination he brought in his first few months in the house, the girl would have thrown him out.  But it only made her laugh, almost as much as it made the lady yell and stomp and spray smelly stickiness from cans and then grumble as she wiped away the smelly stickiness.

He messed up everything.  Now toys had to be played with quickly and guarded.  She had to eat her food in her cage and do it right away in the morning or else he would wander in and vacuum it up in seconds.  For a while, before he had gone to the vet's office for an overnight, he was overly attentive to her.  All she wanted was to sleep in a lap, under covers, or eat the squeakers from things that squeak.  But there he was, licking her weepy eye, sniffing the same spots, putting his paws where they had no business letting the rest of him be.

She realized, one night at what hoped to be the tail-end of a very very cold winter, that she had practically forgotten herself while he was interrupting her very cozy lifestyle.  It was as if she had fallen asleep before he showed up, then was so jolted awake by his mania, that she hadn't had a moment to think at all in years.  She decided that what she really needed to do was pay better attention, perhaps to take notes even, so that slowly she could regain her place as center of the house.

Together

They walked around the park twice, somehow dodging a pair of overly-friendly pomeranians and passing a jogger at least three times.  They walked to the street opposite where they had entered the park from and walked up, around the neighborhood that surrounded the park in two-level chipped paint homes with backyards and shared driveways.

They reached the corner with the light, turned and saw a yellow school bus pass beside them.  The man said "Hey, there you go - perfect timing" as the bus slowed and stopped a block ahead of them.  The boy and the girl got out, but Betty couldn't see who they were just yet.

The man whistled the loud whistle that he only does every once in a while, when something exciting is happening.  And the boy and the girl wheeled around and started running to catch up.  Betty knew them from their yelling, their flaling legs and how the lady and man walked faster.  She jumped up and wanted to kiss the girl, then the boy, then the whole day with all of its crazy sunshine.

Spring

For a while, life got busy.  The kind of busy where you walk and you sleep and you do everything, but it blurs and you don’t seem to get a clear picture of anything until you stop and stand still.  The winter passed kind of like that.  Only a few snowy days, which was fine with Betty because she loved to romp in the snow but didn’t like when it bunched up in her paws.

The sun came back just about the time that the clocks slowed.  The lady, who was usually on the go most days, stayed home one day when she would normally have been gone.  All day, Betty stayed close by her.  Stood outside the bathroom door when she peed, sniffed around the kitchen while she baked pumpkin bread, paced around her as she dressed to take Betty for a walk.

Stepping outside with the man and the lady, Betty closed her eyes and sniffed the air.  It smelled like flowers not yet ready to bloom but almost there.  The sun was out and the air was made of light.  Betty pranced as they walked, ran forward as she saw them approach the park, and barked happily as she saw other dogs out with their ladies and men, circling the park and chatting.

A Neighbor

Betty sniffed a spot, circled, circled, hunched down, and circled some more.  After a comedy of circling, she started to poo.  The lady stood, leash in one hand, mini poop-bag turned inside-out like a waterproof mitten on the other hand.  Betty generally coiled her poo, always starting to walk away as the last bit fell, so that following the coil were just a couple of hard to find stringers.

The lady cupped the bulk of it in her bag-mitted hand, inverting the handles and tying them together.  She was very thankful that Betty was no larger because getting everything into one palmful would be much more difficult.  Betty had to be reminded to stay and wait.  She seemed agitated about something.

The lady looked up to find a very burly man in a leather jacket and jeans pulling a wheeled trashcan out to the curb.  "Mornin' ma'am.  Just doin' a little cleanin' up at the old place here.  That's a pretty sweet little dog you got there.  I had me one just like him when I was a kid".

Iron Coffins

The lady chose a new route this morning, muttering something about curtains pushed back and the same lawn twice a day.  They walked past the corner store, crossed the street and up a block with entirely new smells.

The corner had a lot of dogness about it, and so many plants that there was constantly something in bloom.  Betty particularly liked the smells of this area.  But they walked on and the lawns were pretty well the same as the old route.  They crossed a street and walked down another new block with fewer houses on it.  There were a lot more smells here, and this took more investigating.

In one edge of grass, near a driveway, was a very tasty smelling pile of what must have been pizza, chewed and spewed.  An empty beer can and a box were littered nearby in the parking lot that boasted maybe eight motorcycles.  A little square building with no windows sat there quiet as if holding its head in the noisy dawn.  On the front of the building, in black iron lettering, the words "Iron Coffins" spelled very clearly who owned the place.