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.