Fast Fiction

Beckett weighed 20 pounds when we got her at the Beagles & Buddies Rescue on Labor Day weekend 1994. For most of the rest of her life she weighed about 40.

Beckett liked to “get the moth” which was, in her limited vocabulary, the word for any insect. If it was a particularly large moth, she’d kill it and take it to the center of the rug in the living room and roll on it.

Beckett once ate a whole bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Miniatures. This was followed by a visit to the vet. When my brother picked her up at the vet, he was offered a little container with the aforementioned RPBCs. He took the dog and left.

In Beckett’s early years with us she had a problem with vomiting, a lasting effect from distemper. To treat her long episodes, I’d give her a small dose of Pepto-Bismol. It’d administer it in a little syringe, made for babies. One day I came home from work and found the syringe chewed up and stuffed under the fridge.

Beckett really liked to look out for us when we were away. For the most part she kept watch in the living room window. However, if the balcony door was open, she was known to squeeze under the railing and go out onto the peak of the roof to stand watch for our return. (We first found this out via a note left in our mailbox by a neighbor that simply said, “you know your dog was on your roof.”)

Beckett was mostly uninterested in food. At least her own, unless you were interested in it, and then she’d at least be territorial.

Beckett had a weird toe that stuck up on her left front paws. She was also afraid of opening doors. In my fiction of our dog’s past, I imagined that she broke that paw as a pup by a door.

Beckett loved to go in the car.

Beckett always wore a harness in the car, she was buckled into the center of the back seat.

Beckett was very soft, softer than you’d imagine a beagle mutt would be (I always thought she had some sort of spaniel in her). She also shed more than three normal dogs combined.

We bought our furniture and carpeting to go with this dog hair.

Beckett acted more like a cat than a dog. She would walk up to me and rub her head on my legs and often do the same sort of cat-like snuggling on the couch.

Beckett did not like to wear hats.

Beckett loved to zoom. In the early days when we would let her off leash to play fetch at the dead end of our street, sometimes she would tear off, up the stairs. Even in the house she would go so fast racing around the house she’d bank off the walls.

Beckett was once stung by a bee, I think she was trying to eat it (see the above “get the moth”). It stung her on the inside of her mouth. At first I thought she’d stuffed a tennis ball in her mouth. For several days her cheek was swollen up like she was hoarding nuts.

I don’t have enough photos of Beckett.