Celebration of a Life

Our Beulah was at the vet clinic last week to get a second treatment for her chronic kidney disease.  Unfortunately, this one was not successful, and she is no longer with us.  But I don't want to dwell on the sad.  Beulah was a mellow, smart, fun-loving girl, and I'd like to tell you a little about her.

Our local basset rescue organization took her in during July of 2003.  There was very little information about her life before she was rescued, but I've always wondered how her original family could have given her up or, if she was lost, not have moved heaven and earth to try to find her.

Here she was on the day we adopted her, riding in our car, on her way to her new home.  She had just turned 5 years old, and was (ahem) a little overweight.  DH said she had a butt the size of Arkansas.  She was a whopping 76 pounds in this photo. Her ideal weight was between 50-53.  If she was nervous about riding almost 200 miles with strangers to go to a strange new place, she didn't show it.

Enjoying the mild weather in the backyard, my plan of diet and exercise (for her, not me) was already beginning to get results.  She may have thought the regimen was somewhat draconian, but it was for her own good, as I repeatedly told her.

She endured indignity....

...after indignity...

..but was always able to kick back and relax.

Beulah Factoids:

She enjoyed flipping her squeaky toys up in the air before she "went in for the kill." 

She would do a "happy hop" whenever one of us came in the door.

She loved nothing better than a good roll in the grass.

The only thing that ever made her go ballistic was the mail carrier (any mail carrier).

She would go up to you and shake your hand (repeatedly) in a effort to get something to snack on. 

Her favorite snack in the whole world appeared here in Northern Illinois in June of 2007 (millions of cicadas). 

She really just about lost her mind when they appeared.  If left to her own devices, she would have eaten every single one on our property (and there were hundreds, if not thousands). 

For the first six years that she lived with us, Beulah was one-half of a brace of bassets.  Beulah, of course, is on the left, and Timmy, our other basset, is on the right in this photo.  They were about as different as two dogs can be:  Timmy, the neurotic, easily-bored, super-athletic, separation-anxiety-afflicted nut case, and Beulah, the mellow, submissive, playful goofball.

Usually, Timmy's exploits garnered him most of our attention (usually horrified), but one time in particular, Beulah was the recipient of all the "oh no you didn'ts."  We had come back from a shopping trip to find an empty container of pancake mix in the family room.  The reason that this was a little out of the ordinary was because the container had been put away in an upper kitchen cabinet, which meant that Timmy had jumped onto the counter, opened the cabinet door, taken the container down to the family room and opened it.  He was polite enough to close the cabinet door behind him.  And, yes, he was the only dog I've ever known who could jump up on the kitchen counter--all four paws.  His legs were a bit longer than most bassets.  Folks, this is a true story!  So, I was in the middle of asking Timmy what he had been thinking with the pancake mix, when DH says, "You'd better take a look at Beulah."  She had been quite interested in the pancake mix which had, by that time, been turned into batter by her saliva!  It was all over her face, ears and dewlaps.   And you know I got a photo:

This gave new meaning to the term "pancake make-up."   (sorry)   If you check out the background of the photo, you'll notice Timmy's legs.  He's stretched out in our front hall without a care in the world.

Lots of folks will think that Beulah was lucky that we found her back in 2003, but we know that we are the lucky ones.

Thanks for visiting, and letting me reminisce about our old girl.