Betty

Her birthday is just around the corner. March 4th. Actually, March 5th. But her siblings were all born on the 4th. Incidentally, my mother was also born on the 4th. Her name is Betty. Not my mother. I'm speaking of Betty. Betty's name was Betty.

I dreamed of her last night. I hadn't seen her - awake or asleep - for a long time, other than in pictures. She was my best friend.

Apparently my wife also dreamed of her. This "coincidence" seems suspiciously uncoincidental. My wife was very close with Betty as well. Betty may have played a major role in bringing my wife and I together. Ironically, my wife and I being together and advancing through stages of college and working world is what separated us from Betty.

I believe our relationships with animals often transcend the depth of our relationships with fellow humans. Channeling thoughts through our left brain in order to communicate with language muddles things up with my human relationships. My left brain is constantly working hard in my interactions with other humans. With animals, it feels the opposite. Language can be a tool, for sure, but what's more important is intent - the energy surrounding actions (or stillness).

A dream I had about a year ago about Betty was so simple, but also so powerful. All I remember is stroking her fur. The feel of her fur stayed with me for days. There was nothing else in that dream. I don't even recall any visuals. Just the tactile sensation of my hand on her fur. I cried that morning remembering that sensation. I cry now, remembering it again. Stroking smoothly in the direction of the fur, then back against it, her thick hair resisting and piling up between my fingers. The warmth of her body. The rise and fall of her ribs with her breath. The sense of complete surrender and trust.


When that dream released its hold on me, I didn't think about Betty for awhile. Consciously, anyway. Until today, recalling my dream of her last night. This one was much lighter. I'd brought her to a movie theater. This didn't feel unusual in the dream, but I was aware of the need to keep an eye on her. She was handling the situation very well, hanging out by my seat the whole time. Until she wasn't. She hopped up and started racing around and barking, jumping straight through the middle of the audience from front to back, hopping into and out of people's laps and over empty seats. I tried to stop her while also trying to be quiet and not distract people from the movie any more. I woke before I caught her.

This dream so accurately recreated a feeling I often had with Betty. Substitute hiking trail or logging road or park for movie theater, and the rest is pretty much the same. We'd start out cautiously (or more accurately, I'd start out cautiously), testing the waters to see what kind of mood she was in and how tight of a leash she needed to be on. She'd gain my trust, being respectful other people and other dogs, and so I'd let her off leash. As soon as I'd relax into thinking we got it figured out, she'd take off after another dog or a squirrel or a kid or bird and that connection we maintained was snapped.

I don't know how many times I promised myself I would never let her off leash again, but inevitably, I couldn't keep that promise. Partly because I'd think she'd settled down and gotten more disciplined and better behaved, but partly because it broke my heart to leave her on leash. She was so wild and free off leash. She'd be transported to that other world. One where somewhere in the distance she could hear me but the call of her own nature was too powerful. She'd fly through the woods, and while I often couldn't see her, I could almost always hear her. She sounded like a tornado crashing through the forest, leaves crunching and branches snapping. I feared she'd impale herself on a fallen tree branch, or run off a cliff, but she always made it back safely.

I lost her once. We were hiking some logging roads behind my house. It was a great place to take her, since there were rarely any people or other dogs out there, and I could leave her off leash. On this day, we were going for a full day hike, and she carried her own snacks in dog saddlebags someone had given us as a gift. While I would hike on the road, Betty would spend most of her time crashing through the forest, reappearing every few minutes to make sure we each knew where the other one was. Well, one time, she didn't reappear. It took me awhile to realize that she really wasn't going to pop out of the woods. I hiked back up the road, back and forth over the area between where I'd last seen her and where I turned around. No sign. It got dark. I walked home.

That night, I made up flyers on my computer. I bought plastic sleeves to put them in to protect from the never-ending rain of the Pacific Northwest. In the morning, I posted these flyers around the neighborhood, describing in depth this dog that was my best friend, with a color picture of Betty on a hiking trip. Nothing. Later in the next afternoon, I went back to the logging road. In the place where the road splits to two separate mountains, Betty was standing in the middle of the road, blue saddlebags still attached. She hesitated, seemed unsure of whether to really believe her eyes. When she realized it was me she started to run toward me, then hesitated and got bashful, maybe uncertain of how I was going to react, maybe embarrassed by the situation. I kneeled down and she again ran toward me. We cried and hugged each other. Me with tears and arms, she with her whole body. I was wet from the rain, but she was miserably wet, cold, and dirty. The saddlebags, still mostly intact, were drenched and covered in mud. I thought it must have been torture for this dog to go through the night without food, but knowing that she was carrying food on her back and she just couldn't reach it. We cried and laughed about this as I opened up the bag and gave her her food.

Betty was the 10th of 10 puppies. Her mom (Inga) had been in labor for a full day before I got there, and the pups had started being born in the late afternoon. When I arrived, the 9th had been born stillborn and that was a couple hours before. They thought she was done giving birth. About an hour later, she started straining again, and it appeared another puppy was to be born. Inga was exhausted and seemed like she could barely handle it. She finally forced out a puppy, but in her exhausted state, didn't have the energy to lick the puppy clean to allow it to breathe. The puppy wasn't getting oxygen and we saw its tongue and mouth were turning blue, so we brought it to Inga's face so she could help it. She couldn't. She didn't even open her eyes. We were all inexperienced in this process, but tried to replicate the mother's role, wiping off the puppy's face and body. Sarah, my girlfriend at the time, wiped off the puppy's mouth with the hope that it would simulate the natural process and induce breathing. Puppy turning bluer. We turned the tiny puppy on it's back in our hands, and did the only thing we could think of: CPR. We gave it breaths and pumped it's little chest. Whether it was due to our intervention or that puppy's desire to live or some greater intervention, eventually, the little puppy started breathing. It was after midnight.

Betty was born on March 5th. The rest of her siblings on March 4th. Betty was the runt. She was recognizable because she had a tiny white dot of fur on the top of her head (it made me think in a previous life she'd had a horn there). Otherwise, she was completely black. She was crowded out from feeding from her mother, as all nine of them couldn't feed at the same time. We had to intervene for her to get food. Eventually she was strong enough to take care of herself, but she retained a fear of abandonment and as well as an intense urgency about eating.

I couldn't let Betty go to another home. It felt like everything pointed to Betty and I staying together. But I didn't know if I was ready to have a puppy. I was 22 years old, my future completely uncertain. It wasn't easy, trying to finish up school and working while taking care of a puppy. But both of us and our neuroses complimented each other well.

Early on, I left her in the bathroom when I went to school. I came back to find the bathroom covered in her hair. Somehow she'd gotten everywhere: on the toilet, in the bathtub, in the sink, on the walls(??). She was in a panic that I'd left her. And there were times when I did leave her. For extended periods of time. She went back to live with her siblings and then with my ex-girlfriend when I went to work on an island in the San Juans teaching environmental education for a year. I felt like a horrible father. I hoped she'd understand and still trust me.


Betty went on many adventures with me. Hiking and backpacking and camping. Even river rafting. She hated rafting. She jumped into my lap as I was rowing us through the rapids. She wore a life jacket but that didn't make her feel any safer. We took her on canoe trips to Ross Lake. She'd sit in the middle of the canoe, her head darting around at the sound of a fish jumping, or the sight of a bug on the water, or a squirrel in the trees.


Betty rode in the backseat of a car with my future wife (Jamie) and I as we drove across the state to a friend's cabin. She sat in between us with her head on my lap, then her head on Jamie's lap. The three of us bonded there and on that trip. We had free flowing conversations. I felt as connected and alive as I ever had, the three of us on this backseat adventure. Jamie and Betty took a nap together on the couch at the cabin. Betty loved it.

Betty was in our wedding. She seemed stressed and I was pretty preoccupied, but I loved that she was there. She got a lot of attention, but she only wanted to go home with us.

When Jamie and I both started working full time, I began to feel intense guilt. Betty would stay home all day by herself in our 900 square foot home. She was an energetic dog and loved running and playing. I felt like it must be torture for her to stay inside all day. But she was so loving and understanding when I'd return from work. She didn't hold any grudges.

Still, the guilt began to feel unbearable. Jamie and I talked about it. She was feeling the same way. We loved this dog to death, but felt like we were keeping her imprisoned, and when we got home we were often so tired that we didn't have the energy to take her out running, or there wasn't any daylight left to get out in. One night, I posted a craigslist ad, sharing Betty's nuances and beautiful characteristics and my favorite pictures of her. It was just a feeler, to see if this was even a possibility. A couple days later a family called. The lived just a few minutes away. They had a young boy, about 8 years old, and wanted a companion for him. The wife was a vet's assistant. This seemed like it might be a good situation for her, with a boy to give her endless attention, and the mom to take care of her.

We brought Betty over to get a sense of how she'd feel at that home. We hung out, Jamie and I trying to avoid really feeling what might be about to happen. Betty exploring this new place and not sure what to make of it. She finally lied down in the living room. The boy pet her and got more comfortable with her, and tried to cuddle with her but she growled at him. When Betty was at all overwhelmed, she didn't like it when new people got in her space. A couple times she'd snapped at kids. Never viciously, but just to send a message. It made me love her even more.



In spite of the growl, they called us back the next day to say they'd like to come pick her up. We quietly put together all of her stuff, cerebrally knowing what was about to happen, but still not wanting to let ourselves feel it. Her new family took her bed and food and the couple toys she had that hadn't been touched by her (Betty was the most determined chewer of toys I've ever known. As soon as she was presented with a toy, she maintained complete focus and would not stop tearing apart the toy until it was strewn about in tiny unchewable pieces strewn about on the floor. She especially loved toys with filling. She'd instantly rip a hole in it and then start pulling out and flipping up in the air bits of cotton filling until it was empty. She even chewed up tennis balls and golf balls with this determination. I never found a toy that she couldn't destroy).

The new family left with her. Betty was a good sport, going on her next adventure. Whether she knew what was happening I don't know. I think she probably did.

The family called a few days later. Betty had bit the boy on the head. Nothing serious, mostly just a defensive snap, but they were concerned and wanted to keep me in the loop in case it wasn't going to work out. I didn't know if I could handle doing the whole process again if that were to happen.

Our house felt empty. I felt a different guilt. I felt like I'd disappointed Betty, and not lived up to my responsibility as her father. I'd abandoned her, and realized her worst fears. But after a week of no calls, then another week, I started feeling guilt lift a little. I realize now that I'll never lose the guilt of not being a good father, and handing Betty off to another family, but I didn't feel the daily guilt of her life wasting away in an unhappy situation. Betty loved us, and we loved her. I can't say if our love was enough for her to be happy living with us. My hope and my belief (on good days) is that she got both love and a healthy environment with lots of attention and time outside with her new family.

I tried to get in touch with the family a couple times just to check in and see how she was. The last I heard, the parents had gotten divorced but the mom and son were doing well and Betty was doing great.

In a little over a week, she'll be 13. It's been five years since I saw her. I don't know if she's still alive. My more recent attempts to get in touch with the family have received no returned calls. I respect their desire for privacy. They don't owe me anything. I wish them the best.



Betty will always be a part of me. We knew each other so well. Just by looking in each other's eyes we knew where the other one was. We grew up together. I wonder if she remembers me. Part of me hopes she does, and part of me hopes she fell in love with her boy and forgot about me. I will certainly remember her forever.

Happy almost birthday, sweet puppy.