On the first day, I kept Betty on top of my desk; she slept while I worked.

Day 2: Betty has moved from the top of my desk into her pen (behind me, at my desk).

Betty Zing was born January 9, 2020. This is a picture of Betty Zing, at eight weeks old, just before we adopted her.

Scott and I are university professors (different universities).  We both teach a lot of our courses online, have been doing so for years, and when we do teach on campus, we alternate days so that there is usually someone home with the dog(s).  When I first met Scott, I had a basset hound, named Moana.  Actually, her full name was Moana Sophia Ms. Piggy LaBelle (for no particular reason).  She moaned a lot.

Moana live for eleven years and passed away many, many years ago.  Since then, we’ve had two other dogs: Daisy (an Australian Shepherd) and Domino (an Australian Cattle Dog/Border Collie).

Actually, we adopted Domino almost a year after I met Scott, and the kids named her.  Domino was a playful puppy who greatly annoyed Moana (who was already a very grumpy eight years old by then), much to our amusement.

About a year after Moana passed away, we adopted Daisy, who turned out to be a perfect match in playing for Domino, and they were best friends until Domino passed away a few years ago.  Two years later, Daisy passed away in January  2019, and we decided to take some time off from owning a dog.  At the time of Daisy’s death, I had not been without a dog for most of her life (the exception being a few years during college), and by the following January, I was more-than-ready to get a puppy.

Daisy and Domino were both good dogs, but my heart belonged most to grumpy old Moana.  Moana saw me through challenging times in my life, and despite her grumpiness, she was mostly a very good dog.  Scott and I agreed to get a basset hound, and so I looked at both basset hound rescue sites and basset hound puppy sites.

That’s how I found Betty Zing.  I had never, ever seen a black basset hound before!  Her parents are both tri-colored basset hounds, but she and all her siblings were black, with bits of white — especially on the noses and feet.  I chose Betty because she was the runt of the little, with hopes that she would not grow to be quite as big as her parents (named Rosie and Ozzie Osborne).

She is settling in very nicely.