
I was on the phone when I noticed a skinny, nearly hairless, little beagle wandering around the homes of my cul-de-sac street. I grabbed a handful of dog food, filled a bowl with water and went outside to see what I could determine about this dog's condition and where it might have come from. The dog came right to me and was obviously hungry and thirsty, but her priority was to give and receive love. She was the sweetest thing, not at all scared, and she climbed into my lap as soon as I sat down on the sidewalk next to her.
Of course, she wasn't wearing a collar or any form of identification. I suspected that she might belong to the neighbors directly across the street from me, but I didn't knock on their door. I had had experience with them and their pets before. Once, I found a young Golden Retriever with an injured and severely infected tail on their property, and I had called the animal control officer. On another occasion, I took in what I thought was a stray Basset hound. Several weeks later, those neighbors came to my door looking for the dog. When I confirmed that I had her, they asked if I wanted to keep her, so I did. I thought that they had had two beagles, but I hadn't seen the dogs in months, and their grass was over a foot tall in the backyard. If this little one "belonged" to them, I certainly wasn't going to be the one to return her to that hell.
When the animal control officer showed up, she confirmed what I had been thinking. She was sure that this dog belonged to my neighbors, but she told me that she wasn't going to contact them. If they wanted the dog back, she said, they would have to answer to her, explaining the dog's condition and probably facing charges for animal cruelty. "They won't call," she said, "and in three days, she's yours if you want her." So, three days later, when I called the officer, I was informed that the gate would be unlocked and I was free to claim my "new" dog any time.

The first big decision was to pick a name for this sweet, cute, little dog. Beagles may just be the cutest dogs ever to walk the earth, and this dog was superbly cute, even by beagle standards. She had big, brown doe-like eyes, floppy hound ears, and freckles up and down her legs. She loved to be held like a baby and was as quiet as a mouse. She needed a name that matched her cute face and sweet disposition. I also wanted something that represented my Louisiana roots. I soon settled on Beignet and started calling her "Bennie" for short.
It would be several months before the vet would determine that Bennie was healthy enough for the dangerous and painful heartworm treatment. She had the first injection on a Thursday afternoon and the second injection the following day. She was released to go home on Saturday morning on a strict order of crate rest with limited activity. That was no problem since she wasn't a hyper dog anyway and seemed even more content than ever to nap her time away. I was sitting at the kitchen table, her crate at my feet, when I noticed that she didn't look quite right. I opened the crate and pulled her towards me. She was too still, almost listless, and when I pulled back her lip, I noticed that her gums were a pale gray color. I called my vet, who instructed me to take her to the vet on-call, his father, who ran a small, country vet practice.
I've never driven as fast as I did to rush her there, and I was relieved that she was still breathing when we arrived. The vet told me that a large clump of dead heartworms had been released from her heart, entering her bloodstream, and becoming lodged in her lung. He would administer steroids, fluids, and oxygen and would watch her through the night, but he didn't give me much hope for her survival. When he called me the next morning, he actually sounded surprised when he said that she was ready to go home.
She has evolved from that sweet, quiet, little dog in need of love and attention into the queen bee of the household. She found her beagle bay after a few years of silence and now slips easily into it whenever another dog (or person) needs to be given a warning. And, her warnings sometimes aren't the end of it for the offending party. Bennie has been known to relentlessly pursue her target, requiring intervention and removal to stop the attack. At this point, she has completely and totally embodied the "grumpy old lady" moniker, though her face, now white with age, is no less cute than it was in the beginning. She still has those same puppy dog eyes that hold the power to melt the coldest, hardest heart and, of course, those freckles....those freckles!
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Those freckles belie the tough spirit of the dog inside that little, less-than-perfect body. Bennie's attitude and tenacity have carried her through some hard times, and she has been at death's door more than once only to turn her tail on it and to walk away from it. She's a survivor, and she's taught me about what it means to face adversity with bravery, faith, and more than a little stubbornness. And now, as she returns to the vet tomorrow for a recheck of her bloodwork, I pray that I will have more time to learn from her, more time to make up for her rough start in life, and more time to admire those freckles.