I had been moping for some time over my failures with Linus, when I saw the story of Betsey. Here is what R&R Boxer Rescue wrote about Betsey on facebook:
“Friends, I want to introduce you to Betsey. Betsey is 9 years old and has a story to tell. It’s not a good one, and we want to give a trigger warning for death and suicide before we proceed.
Betsey had been with her original owner since she was 8 weeks old. A few months ago, he found himself in a bad place in life. Things weren’t going his way, and among other things, he was losing his home by way of eviction. On the day authorities came to formally remove him from the property, they had to forcefully open the door. When they did, they found that Betsey’s dad had committed suicide approximately 3-5 days prior. She was lying next to him, just waiting. It is not known how many of those days she had no access to food/water. Animal control came and took Betsey, where she was further traumatized by the chaos of the loud kennel, strange dogs, and a new place.
A good friend of Betsey’s dad was out of the country when he passed, but she rushed home and brought Betsey to her home. We should all wish to have friends like this.
That brings us to now… The good friend lives where there is an HOA with rules that do not allow dogs to exceed 25 pounds. Betsey is 65 pounds. The HOA has given some grace for a couple of months, but that is coming to an end. Betsey needs to find a new place to live out her golden years.
Betsey currently lives with two pugs that she has known for a long time. She is otherwise an under socialized dog who is dog friendly with proper/slow introductions. If not properly introduced, she can be a bit rough around the edges.
She is absolutely great with kids, and even ok with dog savvy cats.
Betsey was dealt a really crappy hand, and we are looking for someone to help shuffle that deck.
We believe in Angel’s on Earth, and we know hundreds (if not thousands) will read this post. Are you HER angel?”
As a 911 dispatcher I have dealt with plenty of suicide. One thing I was always proud of was that I never lost a ‘live caller’. And what I mean by that is I never lost a person who called to say they were going to commit suicide or they had taken pills or etc. Something I probably haven’t shared yet is my mother was a 911 dispatcher (no, that’s not how I got into the profession. We can save that story for another time). But one call she told me about, and had a copy of the tape of, was from the 80’s. And it was a man who had killed his wife and he called 911 to say he was debating whether or not to kill his two children that were sleeping. And you hear the dispatcher pleading with him, ‘you don’t want to kill those boys,”. And his voice sounds so distant as he mulls over the decision. In the end he doesn’t kill them. He does kill himself on the line.
One call I remember taking very vividly involved a young man who was about to graduate college. He was telling me he needed to kill himself because his very traditional parents were about to find out they had paid for an art degree and not something more practical. I can’t remember if it was business or engineering. But this guy was so scared for lying to them for years and he called on a cell phone while driving his car. Now 911 is not like it is on tv or in the movies. I don’t have some magic computer that ‘traces’ people or I don’t turn to my partner in the control room and say, ‘trace this call now!’ I had to talk to this to young man for a long time and get clues about where he was. I had to file paperwork via the cell phone company to get a name on the account. I had to do a lot of work while pretty much lying to him that I knew what he was going through. Truth is, I didn’t. I had very supportive parents that paid all four years of my college to get a film production degree. So long story short, I read Betsey’s story and I imagined what her owner was going through to make the decision he did. And I desperately wanted to love on Betsey for the remainder of her years.
Then I reigned in my heart and approached it logically….I am going to foster this girl.
Starting Friday evening she will come to our home. I hope to provide her a nice, safe and loving landing spot. Give her a bunch of love while she’s here. Let my son get some more dog experience with an older senior gal like Kona was. And I am not counting out the possibility of being her forever home. But for now, my goal is to just be helpful and be a foster family for her. I am scared. I am excited. I am looking for advice as always from my dog savvy followers.
Leave a Reply