The Cone

"Whoa Betty!  No no no, that'll just make it worse."  The lady pushed her head away and yelled to the man.  Betty waited a moment out of respect, but quickly sniffed her little head back into place to resume her lick search.

"Go to the store and get a cone - shouldn't cost more than $12.  Now that Betty's awake, she's going to be all over that thing, and we can't watch her all night."  The woman handed a $20 bill to the man, who was putting on his coat and heading out the door.

When he returned, the man put a plastic-smelling sheet curled around Betty's neck.  It was secured with plastic snaps and smelled new and awful.  Betty tried to get down off of the couch, but whenever she looked down, the cone caught on the couch cushion.  The children cooed and petted her but no amount of attention made up for how very very uncomfortable this ridiculousness was.  She tried to walk around and sniff, but the cone kept catching on table legs and tennis shoes.  Betty sat down on the floor, not quite sure what to do.

The Awakening

Betty rested for a good long while as the kids finished their homework.  It was dark outside by the time that hunger and thirst moved the tender beagle from her pile of toasty blankets.  The lady picked her up and set her down on the hardwood floor where Betty took some ginger steps and stayed up.  She walked slowly but steadily to her water bowl.  She ate a bit, not ravenously, but just a mouthful or so to calm her belly.

The lady hooked the leash on and carried Betty down the four steps at the front door of the house that lead to the outside.  Betty sniffed the grass, sniffed the sidewalk, and peed.  She just stood for a moment, still feeling the last effects of grogginess and getting more steady on her feet.  The lady picked her up again and walked her inside.

On the couch, Betty curled up again with a bone, not quite interested.  She was awake again and suddenly aware of her limbs, a small itch on her back, the specific site that was just now starting not exactly to hurt but definitely to make itself known.  She licked her side, licked down to where the hair had been shaved away, and started for the area that hurt the most.

The Foggy Home

The lady was walking toward them, holding out her arms to take Betty.  They walked back through the rain to the car, which was parked in an apartment building parking lot very close by.  The man drove and the lady cradled Betty and whispered.  The kids, from the back seat, asked questions and tried to squirm out of their seats to pet Betty and kiss her sweet ears.

The girl started to cry and the boy covered his ears, just to hear that Betty was groggy and had an incision that would take time to heal.  When they got home, the man went ahead to unlock the housedoor, but the lady stood with Betty curled in her arms, while the two kids cooed and petted her nervously.  It was only three in the afternoon and they had homework to do, but they could think of nothing but Betty.  It was odd to see her so calm and still like this.

The kids made a bed of blankets on the couch and the lady set her gingerly on it.  Betty stayed there, curled on the foggy couch while the kids did their homework on the coffeetable and watched her.  The man worried that she hadn't eaten, hadn't gone outside, but the lady said wait.  Just let her sleep now.  Betty wasn't thinking of eating or peeing or puppies or even wounds that would heal.  She was dreaming with her eyes open, about a foggy house and a pile of blankets that smelled like the kids and the man's voice surrounding her like music and the lady's soft kisses on her head.

The Drugs

The man tried to set Betty on her feet to walk her outside.  She took a few decent steps, but then buckled and lolled forward.  He picked her up, made a call on his cellular phone, and walked out into the grey afternoon.  Betty sniffed the air and licked his hand.  Everything felt strange and slurred.

The lady was coming in the car, busy picking up the kids from school and heading back to where they were at the clinic.  The sky was grey and Betty smelled the rain even before it fell.  The clinic was closing and the man just wanted to hold Betty and walk.

Betty liked how he talked to her, sweetly telling her about the houses as they passed, asking who she really was and how had she really come to them and wherefrom.  The rain and the talk and the steady movement along the sidewalk made everything feel like a dream so Betty just lay still and thankful to be in warm arms and familiar smells.

The Past Revealed

The day passed as a strange haze on unsteady feet.  Betty smelled antiseptic floors and other dogs, heard unfamiliar talking and errant barking.  A tall woman with bright eyes and strong arms walked Betty early in the day from one room to another.  Another woman, blonde hair and gentle fingers, was the blurriest but seemed to be in charge.

By the time Betty could really open her eyes and focus, she was looking at the man, resting in his arms, as the blonde lady talked.  Betty had already been fixed.  They couldn’t be sure so they had to make the incision, but that is all that needed to heal.  The blonde lady mentioned a cone that might need to go around Betty’s head so she didn’t disturb the site, but also said that it might not be necessary at all.  Betty should heal pretty quickly.

The blonde lady also learned some things.  Betty was older than the man had suspected – perhaps as old as two years old.  They couldn’t say if she’d already had all of her shots, so they gave her the full workup.  Betty looked very healthy and seems to have been taken care of, so most likely she was not out in the elements for too terribly long.

The Clinic

Betty was still excited about the special trip and could not sit still on the lady’s lap.  It was still very early and the sky refused to wake up.  The clinic was not far away and they pulled in to find a parking lot full of other cars and pacing dogs.

The man went into the building, coming back out after only a few minutes.  “You would not believe this line.  I have to fill out a form and then take a number.  Just wait here I guess.”

The lady sang along to music as Betty paced, trying to hide under the foot pedals of the car.  After much fussing, the lady and Betty settled on Betty being able to sit up on the drivers’ seat, but only if she could sit still.  Finally, the man returned and Betty went into the clinic in the man’s arms, trembling.

The School

The boy got out, chasing after his favorite teacher and barreling into a large, wide building.  Betty called good-bye, but only the people in the car could hear her.  The lady and the girl took Betty out, on her leash, for a little walk as the yellow bus-beasts started to roll in.  They walked to a lit sign announcing Holiday Break with dates slightly askew.  Betty sniffed the grass around it.  It smelled like the boy and the girl and car exhaust and old gum.

They walked past a small park and back to a garden that the school had planted, now frozen over a bit.  There were still some plants showing, bright green but wilting.  Betty made sure to pee outside of the boxes. 

The girl desperately wanted everyone to see Betty, but the lady insisted that they could only walk by as the girl headed in for her school day.  The girl beamed and ran over to a cluster of other girls, who were all pointing and smiling.  A boy muttered ‘I wish I had a dog like that’ as they walked toward the parking lot to find their car once again.

Before the Long Tomorrow

Betty was going to have a very long tomorrow, but she didn’t know it yet.  The lady and the man had made an appointment at a pet clinic, to make sure that Betty was current on all of her shots.  And also not, in any way possible, going to make puppies.  Not that Betty had even been thinking about that kind of thing.

So as Betty slept in a curl on their bed, the lady and the man talked about where the clinic was, what time to leave, and make sure no dog food is out in the morning.  While Betty slept soundly, they tossed and turned.

The morning was cold and drizzly.  The boy needed to go to school early for band practice, so after everyone ate and dressed, they all piled into the car.  Even Betty.  Which was so exciting she could barely stand it. 

The Night

The man stripped everything from the cage and washed it, while the children went to the desks in their rooms and worked quietly.  The house was still and busy.  Betty didn't know quite where to be with everyone in different rooms, but she settled on the kitchen, where the man was looking in the refrigerator and talking to himself about options with chicken.

After a while, the lady came home, which made Betty very excited.  Nothing was better than everyone together.  The lady poured food into Betty's bowl, sprinkling a liver treat over everything. 

After the man and the lady and the children ate their dinner, the lady took Betty for a walk.  Just two blocks, but they spotted no less than five cats, the last of which was too pregnant to run away from Betty at all.  The lady talked to Betty the whole time, saying that's just too many cats outside on a cold night in the city.  And the pregnant one means more cats to come.

Alone

She was alone.  Some noises came from the radio in the other room, but those weren't the noises of the children or the lady or the man.

Betty cried.  She shook.  She paced and peed and screamed so much that drool pooled at her paws.  She dug at the towels and blankets so furiously that one of the towels was shredded and the bits, strewed about.

The sound of the front door opening made her heart race with joy.  The man and the children were home!  The man opened the cage, heaving a deep sigh and shaking his head, as Betty raced around, jumping from couch to couch to kid.  "Really, Betty?" he said, "we were only gone twenty minutes!"

The Cage

The man set to work immediately, clearing a spot in the dining room, and setting up a large and clanking cage.  He lined the bottom of it with towels and thick blankets.  At the back, a soft circular dog bed beckoned.  Betty sniffed the bars and blankets, but wouldn't step in.

On the couch, the man sat, with Betty curled next to him, watching a video about training dogs.  Betty looked up every once in a while, but she was frankly bored by the box with flashing lights.

She was much more interested later that day when he returned from the kitchen with a toy that smelled heavily of liver snacks.  He called to her from the cage and threw the toy inside.  She was certainly interested, but very nervous.  When he picked her up and put her inside, she tried to run only to find the door shut already.  Betty pleaded with the man but only heard the sound of the front door to the house closing and locking.

Another Beast

Betty was still shaken by the shock of children so happily walking into the rolling beast.  The man and the lady petted her back to calm, only to have the added shock of another bus pulling up loudly near them.  This one was mostly dirty white and the other people who had been standing headed toward it.  The lady gave Betty one last stroke of the ear and walked off in the direction of the bus.  Betty called to her not to go, but the man shushed and the lady went anyway.

Betty couldn't understand it and worried that the man might be waiting for yet another beast.  But he set her firmly down, scratched the back of her neck and declared "Time to head back home, sweet Betty." 

The Bus

They went back to the house, just in time for the lady to grab a bag and walk back out with the man and the children.  Betty ran from one set of legs to another, to the giggling tripping sounds of the children.

They stopped and stood, clustered, at a corner just a couple of blocks away.  Coated, hatted, mittened.  Oddly enough, there were other people standing nearby, which made no sense to Betty.  They didn't seem to be getting into cars or going into houses.  Just standing.  Which made her bark, even when she was turned away from them by the man.

A garrumphing yellow beast of a bus, flashing its angry lights, slowed to a stop and opened its doors with a screeching sound.  Betty jumped and barked, and the man picked her up, smoothing her head and velvet ears.  The kids got onto the bus, while other little people waved and pointed from inside its windowed belly.

The Corner Store

Morning surrounded the house in cold darkness so Betty stood at the top step outside the front door, sniffing the city air and watching.  The corner convenience store lit the air and buzzed gently.  As they walked by it, Betty discovered the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the store.  It smelled like a stale smorgasbord of dogs and cigarette butts past.  Betty wanted to sniff everything, just to make sense of it all.

The lady did not seem interested in lingering, and she curled the leash again around her hand so that Betty could only walk just nest to her.  They turned a corner, staying on the sidewalk that curled around the store.

The grassy area here also smelled like every dog betty had ever smelled.  With a few other new smells mixed in.  A Slim Jim wrapper called to Betty and, just as Betty reached it, the lady snatched the wrapper up, uttering "Ick - no!"

The Routine

The lady, the man and the kids needed noises to wake them up.  Beep, beep, beeping from a box that the man swatted at until it got quiet.  Then again, a few minutes later, but this time with a grumbling and a quick pull on of a bedside lamp.  Betty kept her eyes open but liked the warm pile of fur she created between the two people.  The lady sat up and Betty decided to stretch and moan.

The lady opened the doors of the kids’ rooms, flicking on their lights to the grumbling of the girl and the giggling of the wide-awake but hiding boy.  She went into the bathroom and disappeared for some time into the sounds of water and flushing and brushing. 

The man got dressed and headed downstairs, followed by the now-dressed children, all three heading for bowls and cereal and cups of milk in the kitchen.  They petted Betty, but didn’t seem to be near the front door at all.

The lady came downstairs and gasped.  “We need to take the dog out first thing, guys.  There’s a puddle down here.”  And in a bit of a huff, she grabbed the collar, hooked Betty and headed outside muttering something about a serious change in routine.

The Arrival

Some things arrive with fanfare or gore or a cacophony of crashing, honking noises.  Fortunately, dog poo is not one of these things.  It arrived as quietly as it was made, at the end of a just-before-bed walk, ending in a tidy little pile of stink to the right of the house and just shy of the neighbor’s unruly corner bush.

And with that, all fears of midnight scrambles to reach the door or painful veterinarian proctologists with girthy gelled and surgical gloved fingers were put to rest.

And so the man, the lady, the two children and Betty rested.  All night and quite happily, by the way.

The Elusive Deuce

It had been over 24 hours and two bowls of food, and she had only peed.  This was very concerning to the lady and the man, and they decided that what she needed was a very very long walk.  Well, actually they spent a good thirty minutes psychoanalyzing the effects of new people and new places, not to mention soul-crushing rejection, on the delicate psyche of a smallish beagle.  (Ironically, Betty was on a couch during this conversation, but only because the kids were there and watching some very loud program with a pineapple houses.)

The man walked Betty while the lady went to the store for more supplies.  There were so many smells and so many sounds that she didn’t even try to make sense of it all, she just trotted along and sniffed the air and crunched her paws on the leaves and watched all of the cars.  She could be totally entertained if all they did was sit and watch the cars.

The man still seemed nervous and they headed back home, a minor pee and one bark later.  The lady had returned with a green bone that smelled like mint but tasted like pork and Betty happily sniffed at it, dragging it about and following the lady.  The man followed too, nervously looking at Betty and talking about poop.  They filled her bowl with food again and watched her, both staring, both deciding that if another night passed, they would have to call a professional.

The House

The lady and the man seemed nervous.  They brought her into a house, messy and old and smelling like drafty windows and dust and cookies.  They scurried her up a lot of steps, which made her nails click and her paws slip, into a room with a bed and toys.  She guessed this was the boy’s room, because it smelled like him and had clothes on the floor.

The boy and the girl came in and talked to her in that high-pitched voice that people seem to take when they are happy and talking to her.  (Not like the angry voice, which is decidedly lower and more definite.)

From the other side of the door, she heard scurrying about.  Things being moved and the sound of trashbags and vacuum cleaners and other noises she couldn’t even place.  After a while, they opened the door and walked downstairs, which she did tentatively.  There were really a LOT of stairs, and looking straight down them made her feel just a little bit woozy.

Going Home

After what seemed like the turning of a sun and moon, the lady and the man and the kids came back.  After a quick walk outside, they opened the car door.  Betty loved to ride in the car.  She jumped right in.  They had placed a soft circle bed in the middle of the backseat and she turned around and around on it while the boy and girl got into the car on either side of her.

They had a thick rope with knots on either end and she sniffed and chewed at it, but it didn’t really interest her.  She like to look up out the windows, lay her paw or chin on a warm lap, and drift along with the car.  She particularly loved car rides because nobody got up and wandered off, or walked away.  Everyone was together, right where you could smell and see and touch them.

There are dogs that live their whole lives in one house, or cage, or farm.  But Betty didn't care about buildings.  All she wanted was in that car, held still with her.  If she stretched herself out just so, she could touch the girl's leg with her paw and rest her chin on the boy's lap.  She drifted to sleep again, dreaming of a giggling little girl and a boy who was twirling his hair. 

The Quiet

Betty walked with the man outside.  She peed a little and they went back inside. She curled up on the bed to sleep again, assuming she had a buddy to rest with.  It seemed a pretty nice morning, even though she could not believe the others had gone.  Unfortunately, the man had other plans.  He hid the food dish, filled the water dish and slipped out through the bedroom doorway, shutting the door behind.

It is simply impossible to imagine that when someone leaves you, that they will ever return.  Did the man disappear into thin air?  Did he turn into a goose or a clover?  Was he still standing just outside of the closed door?

Betty hoped for the last option, as all she would have to do is call to him and he would surely open the door and return.  She called for a long time, drank a little water and finally gave up to rest on the bed, still thoroughly exhausted.

The Talk

The children, the lady, and grandma were hungry also.  And all of the really good food was back with grandpa at the other house.  Because the man rarely ate much in the morning, he stayed behind with Betty in the bedroom.  Grandma drove to the other house.  The children and the lady walked.  It was only about half a mile and they got to walk past the sheep on their way.

They baa-ed at the sheep and talked about the dog as they kicked pebbles along the road's edge.  They talked about what they had to change in their house.  About finding a veterinarian and going to the pet store to get all of the things that dogs need (and toys and treats that dogs just plain like.)  About soft ears and how you trim the toenails of a dog.

They agreed, somewhere near the driveway of the other house, that all their conversations lately about getting a pet had been vague, and they certainly had NOT visited grandma and grandpa expecting to get a dog this weekend. And from what they could tell, Betty had simply wandered into their afternoon just as easily as she could have wandered into anyone else’s.  But that, if you are ever asked what the meaning of the word “serendipity” is, yesterday was it.

Hello to the Morning

First order of business: go outside.  The lady slips her tired shoes on, slides arms into coat sleeves and hooks Betty’s collar and leash.  The girl dashes about madly to put on coat and shoes, and the boy is already at the door.  Betty walks out into the morning chill blinking her eyes and sniffing deeply.

The morning pee only takes one trip around the house to arrive.  Betty pulls against the leash, so unaccustomed to limit.  It seems familiar, the collar and the leash, but she can’t quite remember what came before yesterday.  The children chase around the house a few more times, looking back to make sure she is following.

They go back into the house and her paws feel warm on the carpet, so different from the dewy lawn.  She hears the gentle ta-to-tu sound of kibble poured into a ceramic bowl and runs for the bedroom where she remembered food and water waited for her last night.

The Dawn

Morning sneaks in pure white through the dusty window.  The room lacks a clock and the air seems to have forgotten about the ticking of time.  Betty’s eyes open slowly. Her dreams are fleas biting, impossible to catch. 

The children hover at the door, afraid to open, afraid that the whole episode was a delicious illusion, and nothing but their mother and father wait in the closed room.

But Betty grunts and rolls from her back onto her feet as the door creaks open.  Both children let a quiet shriek out and rush into the room to pet her velvet ears.

To Bed

For a while, everyone just watched her eating.  The boy and the girl said she looked like she was pretty hungry and pretended to be super-hungry eating cereal, then candy bars, then turkey legs (because they could pretend the throw the discarded legs over their shoulders.)  The lady and the man just watched, a little nervously, wondering if she ate too fast or how long since she'd eaten last.  Betty didn't look like a weary traveler, but she certainly ate like one.

She was exhausted and curled up on the bed to sleep.  But the man and the woman were talking to the grandma, working out the business of getting a new-found animal into house not accustomed to such excitement.  After a little while, they decided that Betty had better go outside before they turned in for the evening.

She didn't want to go, to be honest.  The sky and the wind and the smells of the world are all wonderful but she was dog-tired.  She peed, but only after the lady and the grandma walked around the house with her.  After about six times around, they gave up hoping for anything more exciting and decided to see what a full evening would result in.  Much to the children's protest, Betty slept curled up between the man and the lady, warm after a very trying day.

The Food

It was poured into a bowl, when the lady returned.  A pile of food and a bowl of water next to it.

If you've ever gone an entire day without any food at all, you will know.  That it's like finding proof of god, or money in your wallet, or dreaming you have not a single drop of water only to find the clearest stream at your front door.  It's confirmation that the world is good and tomorrow is possible.  It is the most basic sense of assurance.

And Betty ate it fast and full and couldn't even believe how it appeared in that bowl in front of her, and how the closet smelled like more of it.  She didn't question any of it.  Just ate.  And ate.

The Plan

Across the street and up at the corner, grandma and grandpa had another smaller house.  It was decided that Betty could stay in a room there for a while until dog food and leash and collar could be found.  The children immediately offered to stay with her to make sure she was safe and comfortable and generally surrounded by noise at all times.

A bowl of water was presented like the gift of life itself and she drank it wishing her tongue were a straw and the water would just hurry up already.  The ground was soft like thick grass only it was beige and smelled like a sweater.  The bed was tall and not easy to jump up to, though the little girl was quick to lift Betty up in the most inglorious but effective way.

And so Betty curled up on a farm auction quilt and slept for the first time in what seemed forever.  The lady and grandpa went to the store to find food and such.  The man and the kids hovered around the sleeping beagle, chatting.  And grandma stacked jars and tidied up, thinking how very much can happen in one day in the countryside.

The Leap

Betty curled on the lady's lap, warm and sleepy.  She could barely hear them talking.  It sounded like leaves on a warm day and nothing out of place.

"We can do this.  There's just no way I'm going to turn this dog back onto the street."  The lady said it with petting, so the feel of warmth on Betty's head seemed to come from the words themselves. 

"Absolutely - it's just not going to be easy.  We don't know anything about this dog.  If she's sick, if she's housebroken, if she's been abused.  And we have so much to clean up and get ready for her.  How will we get it all done?"

The lady's hand and the man's hand curled together in the middle of the car seemed to answer the question, and Betty could hear the slight rumble of a pebble driveway which she knew was just in front of a wooden house.

The Man

The man drove and the silence was full of his thinking.  He had never owned a dog, never had a pet that jumped and licked and sought love so intensely.  In fact, he'd lived in the countryside where runners were biters and were just about the only dogs you actually got to meet.  So Betty was an absolute mystery.

She seemed so calm it might have been unnerving, but it felt reassuring instead.  Like fate, or good luck if you don't believe in things like fate.  Or love, which transcends luck or fate or things.  And he thought for a minute that this might actually be love.  The leaping kind of love.  That just knows and sees where it will lead next.

But life doesn't leap, it takes doing and fixing and preparing.  The fence needed to be mended in the backyard, the house was a mess of piles and papers and things to be washed, and the money never increased and never filled the bellies already needing to be filled.

The Car

Betty could feel the lady's heartbeat through her lap.  She curled up easy and warm and looked out the window.  Other dogs stick their heads out, let the wind rush into their eyes and dry out their tongues.  But Betty never could understand why.  When her feet were so tired and the lap so warm and sun surrounding the car.

They didn't drive very far, which was kind of a disappointment.  Betty loved to lie down and stare out the windows, head or paws resting on a person.  She could watch the trees without hearing every noise.  She could see the birds that were too big for any sensible dog to chase after.  The clouds slipped by like white sighs or puffy yawns.

The lady still held her as they got out of the car, the sound of bleating sheep close-by.  Before they even reached the wooden door with the evergreen wreath, a man appeared and opened the screen.  "Nope.  Not ours.  I watched her walk right up that street and look around.  She must have heard the kids."

The Double-Check

Betty romped with the boy and the girl, running behind the house and sniffing, then darting back to find them chasing toward her.  The lady disappeared into the house and reappeared with a very tall man, long-haired and full of limbs.  Betty sniffed the wind.  When the lady knelt down, "come here" could have been "apple dumpling" or "cup of cancer" - it didn't matter.  Betty knew to run over to her, to lick her face, to keep your paws down, but lift up to face the lady. 

The man seemed to stand so high that he blocked out the sun, and when he knelt down, it was like a tree bending to sit.  But he held his hand out and Betty could feel it warm on her face.  She could fit her whole head on that palm.  She licked the flat of it.

"Okay, wait.  What if she ran away from the other neighbors?  Let's check down at the sheep farm before we make any decisions at all."  The man stood up again, the lady picking Betty up and walking toward the car.  "If they don't know anything about her, then maybe.  Just maybe."

The Facts of Life

From the wooden house, you could smell the salsa and tomato juice that Grandma was up to her elbows in. She had been through these scenes before and was busy with steaming jars and strainers. Dogs appear from nowhere out here. But food doesn't can itself.

Grandpa walked a straight line from his front door to the front door of the neighbors across the street. He disappeared into the tidy beige brick house as Betty ran circles around two children in the side yard. He reappeared and the lady knew, even from yards away, that the dog was not theirs. He wouldn't be able to keep it. Grandma and Grandpa already had two dogs and six cats. And new animals showed up all the time. You could measure the health of a nation's economy by the number of lovable pets abandoned to country roads.

"We can't take her in. Just have to let her walk on, I guess." Grandpa didn't want to say it, but said it anyway. And the statement sat there like wind that forgot to move and the grass itself holding its breath.

The Locals

To say that there are no neighborhoods in the countryside is to show you are a fool.  Everyone knew each other here and most locals kept track of their dogs.  You might come to know the area dogs by watching them run in their yard as you drove by or hearing the incessant barking at squirrels.  Some dogs were already known as runners, who didn’t have the good sense to avoid the road and always got tracked down through a series of phone calls, small farm to small farm. 

In general, dogs found wandering around this part of the country were not locals.  And certainly not a pretty little gal like Betty.  The lady didn’t live here so she had no idea about the locals, but even she was sure this little beagle was out of place.

“Go ask Grandma and Grandpa if they’ve seen this dog before.  Those neighbors right across the street have little kids and maybe this is their puppy.”  The little girl ran in the house, yelling.  Grandma said “no” even before she walked out, and Grandpa took one look and shook his head in a sad way, the kind of headshake that even a dog could see and know it meant shame on someone but didn’t say who.

The Question

It started as a warning.  "What do you mean?  A dog?  For goodness sake, don't touch it!"  The woman pushed past the little girl in the cabin doorway and ran outside looking for the boy.  Around the corner, up from the driveway, ran a small beagle with a ten year old boy chasing close behind.  The woman was simply not prepared for such a small and tidy morsel of canine cuteness.  She gasped what probably sounded something like a hiccup and knelt down. 

Betty already knew she liked the children.  They giggled and chased her and didn't poke her eyes or grab her tail at all.  And they smelled absolutely intriguing, like sausages and red licorice.  But the lady seemed round and warm and smelled like flour and soap.  Betty ran up and licked her face at once, which is usually what the people like.  Especially the people who smell like that.

The scratching started near the ears and showered down the back. It was really the most delicious scratching Betty had experienced in quite a while.  The woman was cooing and the kids clasping their hands together pathetically, pointing at Betty, petting her and squealing 'please, please'.

The Road

Betty Charlotte Beaglesworth hated to be alone, so finding herself walking along the country road was a very odd thing indeed.  Our story begins here, though she certainly started some time earlier, and the road, much earlier than that.  And the country, well my goodness, we can scarcely even remember.  

Betty's trimmed nails clicked as she walked along the pavement.  Up ahead, the smells changed a bit as another road cut her path and opened up with two more, in opposite directions.  Standing at the crossroads, she lifted her head, ears flopped back as she sniffed the air, and sniffed for something strong and beckoning.  But the air was sunshine and dusty pavement and corn growing old.  She turned her to look up each new path.  Just wind and earth and green turning beige.

Her ears caught something.  Laughter, trapped beyond a treeline to the right.  With it, another shade of laughter, playing tag and slipping from the tall grass and leaves.  It wasn't at all difficult for Betty to find the children, beside the pond and pines, a wooden house nearby.

The Beginning

This blog is the story of a dog, dropped into the country and moved to the city.  Just a practice in writing and following the adventures of a lovely little beagle.  There may be a few authors, but the primary one is Jonie McIntire, the lady with the liver treats and the penchant for bringing home new toys.  Nobody knows where this blog will take us, not even the lady.  Or the beagle.  But we hope you check in every once in a while to follow along.