Dog Stories: Betsy

George was my first Border collie, but his story can wait.

Betsy is the first BC puppy that I really got to know and love, and whom I ultimately failed through apathy and naivete. And hormones. Mine.

In high school, I was friends with a large family with five kids, ranging in ages from two older and ten years younger than me. Two of the kids were in my high school: one of my best friends Amy and her brother Wyatt. I would have to say that Amy probably didn't consider me her best friend. I was that kind of teenager. All fangirl but no fans. I loved her and that family like none other. They were close and raucous and gauche and godly - everything my family was not. Well-churched, with extended family all over the state, Amy's family had a big open door for "the lost" and I suppose I qualified. I spent lots of time over there, and it helped that the house was two blocks from high school.

After Amy went off to college (she was a year older than me), I still maintained ties with them, and specifically, had a massive crush on her little brother. He is two years younger, so it felt rather taboo, and I kept my feelings hidden.

For Christmas (I think this dog story has one of those typical elements to it), they got a puppy. A very very attractive and cute-as-a-button Border collie puppy. Any Border collie owner knows the upshot of this story, right?

At my house, I had just lost Suzy the beagle and Red the outdoor dog, and was left with Thomas who was around 7 or 8 at this time. I was looking for a project dog. And along came Betsy.

Betsy was a little terror, as most Border collie puppies will be if left to their own devices. No one in the family had ever thought of dog training. All the previous dogs in their network were retrievers or poodles or chihuahuas. Yes, these breeds can be a handful but less likely than BCs.

When she was little, Betsy was a cute little roly-poly with shark teeth, but her antics could be tolerated. As she grew taller, she spent more and more time in the backyard, and by the time my senior spring semester rolled around, I was feeling so sorry for Betsy. She spent hours in the back yard, destroying things. I piped up. "Betsy needs training. I can do that."

It was arranged that my two free periods after lunch could be devoted to coming to their house and letting myself in during the day (no one was home, except maybe for their maid). I could walk her, work her and turn her into a decent family pet.

For a month, I did just that. I enjoyed her, loved on her, taught her to sit/stay, and not to jump up.

What I didn't know (and I do now) is that it's not about training the dog, it's about training the people. I also didn't know that Border collies require a high level of exercise and action - they need jobs. Betsy had no job. I was her only highpoint of the day, and it was killing her. Idle Border collies are the Devil's playground.

Add to the mix the fact that Wyatt started coming home after his 5th period for some reason, and he and I overlapped at the house for about 30 minutes. The flirting was epic, and while no contact was ever made, I began spending more of my 75 minutes at their house hanging out with him. (Yes, this really is the truth. I was quite innocent in those days and never understood that that kind of unsupervised free time between teens is exactly how we get teen parents.)

In any event, as my interest in Betsy's training waned and in Wyatt increased, her behavior got worse, and eventually, the family decided to give her to an aunt or mawmaw "in the country" where she could "run free."

My guilt soared. Not only was my crush on Wyatt taboo (in my mind) but I had also failed to rescue this dog. I hadn't followed through on my promise and the lofty goal in my head to make her into the perfect family pet.

God only knows what happened to Betsy, and I hope something that I did served her in the future. As far as I know, everyone in the family and mawmaw loved Betsy a lot. No one was abusive or hateful towards her. It was just another case of a misplaced pet, and I truly hope Betsy found a good home at last.

I've made up for that over the years, to other dogs and specifically other Border collies. But Betsy was the first puppy I had long hours with. I can still feel her little cat feet and those baby shark teeth, and see her crazy eyes laser-punching holes in me from the other side of the glass, when I would sit on the couch and watch Wyatt play Simon (or some other electronic game that was emergent at the time).

What the family thought of me, I'll never know, and frankly, I don't want to know. I can sorta guess. Eventually, I was the stray that they gave away to someone else. After so many years of me looking into their lives, just as Betsy would stand at the sliding glass door in the backyard, I finally stopped my efforts to fit in, to be liked by them. I recall a conversation with Wyatt when we were both in college, where he was cruelly dismissive. In the same way that Betsy had been offloaded, so was I.

There's the catch phrase "You teach people how to treat you," and a subclause of this could be "Observe how people treat their dogs for clues as to how they will treat you."

Betsy, you deserved better and I'm sorry I couldn't make it happen. I hope you got the love, space and work you needed. I did, eventually.