Driving Miss Betty

Driving Miss Betty

It’s been two months now since we rescued Betty from the Group Home called Frosted Faces. That name for a senior pet rescue center seems to be focused on the graying of dogs and cats as they age, but now I think it is more about the shock of dependency that shows on the faces of pets that have been abused, abandoned or simply forgotten in the rush of modern life. Kim did a DNA test on Betty and discovered that, unlike Cecil, who turned out to be pure Bichon Frise, Betty is pure mutt with 44% poodle, but the rest the proverbial dog’s breakfast of other breeds. One look at Betty, with her wispy white fur, long bow-legged physique, and slow and purposeful wandering, told me she was never destined for the Westminster Kennel Club. Once Kim had her teeth fixed (a mess from years of neglect, where several rotten teeth needed pulling), Betty took on a crooked-smile, snaggle-toothed look that made a her a poster child Frosted Face. The vacant stare could be attributed to her status, but given its improved state in our home, it seemed to be more about her cataracts that gave her the early nickname of Blind Betty.

Yesterday, Betty had eye surgery and when Kim brought her home at the end of what was surely a long and unpleasant day for Betty, she had regained that look of abject abandonment. We were told that she did not fight and did not struggle with the veterinary staff, but resigned herself to whatever fate awaited her. She was sedated and then anesthetized and by the time she was picked-up she had a translucent cone around her neck that really did frame her frosted face in a new and yet somehow familiar look of resignation. I don’t know if it was the eye surgery or her new ocular abilities (which, in all honesty, we have been told will take several days to clarify), but Betty stared out from her cone with stronger sense of awareness than what I used to see in her clouded eyes.

Betty, who I will no longer refer to as Blind Betty, is now going to be called Bling Betty. I must admit that autocorrect came up with the name, but it seems appropriate since Kim bought her a post-surgery gift of a leopard-pattern sweater, which will get modeled only once the cone gets removed. Kim has already tried to feminize her with a pink camo collar and leash and then a peach version of the same (me thinks Kim is projecting since I would not stand for Cecil to have anything less masculine than his foppish name would suggest).

So once Bling Betty started walking around the house in her drug-groggy state, I watched anxiously to see if she seemed to be able to see better. Kim was in the kitchen getting her dinner ready since she had had no food for a day. I noticed that Betty was not moving much differently or faster than she had with her full cataracts in place. She is a twelve-year-old dog so maybe, like me, she is happy to move less briskly in her older age. But I was hoping that she would not bump into things so much as she had. It was really hard to tell. She did bump into walls and furniture, but it was always with her new cone rather than her nose. It was genuinely hard to tell if that was an inability to see the obstacle or an inability to manage this new plastic protrusion. Imagine an older woman wearing a full hooped skirt for the first time, bumping into door jams, and you have a visual image of what Bling Betty seemed to be encountering.

I began wondering how Betty was going to gobble up her dinner as she was generally want to do. I was betting that grogginess would not dull her hunger. That cone would present a specific frustration. But Kim was way ahead of me on this and she had already taped Betty’s chow bowl to another upside-down bowl so as to elevate it to get the food past the cone and into Bling Betty’s eager snaggle-toothed lips.

Finally, Betty’s long day finally caught up with her and she collapsed into a wispy white mound with a plastic flange sticking out. Her face, framed peacefully by the plastic cone had a peaceful but sad look with big dark eyes. Do you remember those painting from the 1960’s done by Margaret Keane with the children with big eyes? Tim Burton did a special on them called Big Eyes. You may have heard that her now-renowned art was falsely claimed to be done by her artist husband, but after her divorce, she was proven through a paint-off to be the true artist, and still exhibits her work to this day. Those images had an interesting origin. It seems that Keane had damaged eardrums as a child and that caused her to have to focus on people’s eyes to discern what might be coming out of their mouths. That focus made her acutely aware of eyes and inspired her art. The eyes are supposed to be the windows on the soul, according to William Shakespeare. Keane seemed to sense that and her art depicts great sadness and pathos.

Well, I do not know if dogs have a soul. I am certain that Kim would say that they do, but it may be more semantic than anything. I’ve spent a moment looking at the etymology of the word “soul” and note that there is a preponderance of usage that is derived from humanity as the only beings that have cognitive and spiritual presence. But there is also a definition which involves the immaterial animating principles of anything. I sort of understand that we are all prone to projection, probably especially with our pets. But when I look at Bling Betty, fast asleep with her little frosted face and darker than before eyes, I see a Margaret Keane lost soul with big dark eyes staring at me with deep-seated meaning and yearning for a few more years of peaceful and comfortable life. That is as close to a soul as I need to feel that I will support Kim in whatever she wants to do to help Bling Betty get to where she wants to be.

It costs a lot to have a dog get cataract surgery. I don’t care about the money, but I do care that Bling Betty get something for the money. There are no guarantees in life so there was never certainty that Betty would become a keen-eyed dog. At this point we would settle for Bling Betty simply being able to see the cactus and the coffee table so as not to bump into them. We want her to be able to enjoy the out-of-doors and the wonders of nature in San Diego. And mostly, we want her to be able to see us and trust that we are on her side trying to give her the Bling of life that she deserves. We want to be driving Miss Betty forward in life in the best manner that nature will allow.