Why is Betty black? Because Betty is the center of the universe.
Category Archives: Notes and Stories by Scott
The Only Thing to Fear…
Betty loves bicycles but she is afraid of scooters. When we are walking and a bicycle goes by, Betty becomes a regular dog and drags me forward in pursuit of the wonderful machine. But when a kid on a scooter passes us, Betty trembles, runs in the opposite direction, and repeatedly stops and looks back in a paranoid way to make sure the evil thing isn’t following us. Maybe scooters are scary because they have those tiny wheels that remind Betty of her short legs. Dogs have to be in denial about something.
The Power of the Nose
I have one inviolable rule when I take Betty on a walk: if we’ve passed it, there is no going back to sniff it or examine it. I don’t care if it is a pot of gold I missed—we aren’t going back.
Betty, of course, has no regard for the rules made by the oppressor controlling the leash, and I think she takes pleasure trying to yank my arm out of its socket whenever she wants to investigate that invisible thing we just walked by. She probably plans it: walk by the thing casually as if it is totally uninteresting, and then, when we are sufficiently past the thing, lunge for it desperately. I wonder if Betty has been reading Kropotkin or something.
