Bette, 2013-2016

When Mark first saw Bette on the internet, he told me that he wanted that dog. He found her on the Miami-Dade Animal Control web site. Our beloved schnauzer, Sasha had died just a couple of weeks earlier and Mark missed her very much. So the next day we drove down to Hialeah, in Dade county, to see her. Mark took one look at the pathetic puppy and walked away, "Let's look for a different one." Lilo, the name MDAC gave her, was a mess. A matted, tick infested mess. While Mark looked at some sweet and lovable dogs, I reached into "Lilo's" cage and pulled her out. I cradled the little puppy in my arms and she looked up at me with those big brown eyes. Meanwhile, Mark came back and told me about a cute dachshund he saw in the next room. "No", I told him, "We're taking this one. This is the dog we came down here for." So we brought her home, renamed her Bette, and introduced her to her big brother, Chandler. Luckily Bette and Chandler hit it off. Chandler loved that little dog and let her do whatever she wanted to him. She bit his ears, his legs, and his jowls, all in an effort to get him to play. It worked. They became best of friends. Mark and Bette also grew very close. She became his dog, preferring to sleep on his pillow, following him all over the house. Proving we had adopted the right dog.

Early yesterday morning, around one o'clock, Bette let out a short series of yelps and died. Bette had serious health problems from the very beginning. Seizures was the first outward appearance of trouble. Weird sounds would come out of her while she slept next to me on my pillow, and more recently she became very picky about eating. When it became apparent that she was losing weight we took her to a veterinarian here in Illinois. Over the last week she became more and more ill so we took her to a specialty veterinarian who told us that she had almost no liver, and lesions on her kidneys. By Tuesday afternoon Bette was in dire shape. She was walking into walls and falling down so we took her back to the vet. That was a useless thing to do. Basically the vet looked at us and asked "What do you want us to do?" So we took Bette back to my sister's house where she died in her sleep.