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A Tribute to Betsey, My First Rescue
Early this morning I had to put my dear sweet Betsey down after having her for a little over 10 ˝ years. Betsey came to me as my very first rescued Collie through Collie Rescue of Mississippi. Rescuing Betsey literally took 1 ˝ weeks to finally rescue her as she was wondering the streets through a neighborhood but, would not appear for very long and no one knew where she would disappear to. I decided to keep Betsey to replace my very first Collie, “Lassie” that I had to put down at the age of 13 ˝ due to a horrible stroke.
When I got up this morning to let the Collies out, I noticed Betsey having a real hard time getting around as she had a bad front shoulder from being hit by a car at a very young age and then her hind leg, which I thought at the time, was not functioning for her. I picked her up and took her outside so she could relieve herself and then brought her immediately back into the house and put her in the master bedroom where she could be comfortable and away from the other dogs. I immediately took a shower and got dressed so that I could rush her into the vet. Thankfully, we were the first ones there.
Upon a brief examination, Rick took x-rays of Betsey saying that it was not her hind leg but her back. He found a broken pelvis, a herniated disc, calcium deposits all over and severe arthritis in all four legs. Rick told me that the pelvis would heal and that he would give me supplements for her food for the calcium deposits and pain killers but, with all the other problems included, he told me there was no good prognosis. I then told him to put her down as I did not want her to suffer. We don’t know how her pelvis broke only that she was fine last night eating, drinking water and even went out with the seniors to do her business. I noticed nothing unusual with her last night until this morning.
This is Betsey’s story (Long and I’m sorry but she was my first rescue).
I was called by a young couple back in 1995, who were in the process of moving and they informed me of this stray Collie that came around every one to two days but, would not linger around for very long so they could never catch her. The destination to where Betsey was from my home is about a 45 minute ride so every time these people called to tell me she was back., I would jump in the car and drive all the way down to their location but, each time that I got there it was too late as she had already disappeared. Each time I drove down and missed her, I would drive around the neighborhood but to no avail. Days went by and every attempt that was made to finally find Betsey was running out as the people were leaving in two days.
The weekend of the Fourth of July came and we were all able to leave work at 2:00 that afternoon for a long Holiday weekend which was a pleasant surprise. Being grateful of being able to leave early, I decided to go home and pack a cooler full of cokes and something to eat whereby I drove to the location that Betsey was and sat in the driveway for hours in hopes that she would appear. The people that were moving made several trips back and forth from their home to their new home and each time they returned for another load of boxes would ask if she had appeared and unfortunately, each time the answer was “no”. You see that day I sat in the driveway was the last chance I would have to finally catch Betsey as there would be no one living at the house after nightfall.
The hours went by and then nightfall came making the chance of finding Betsey was impossible. Very distressed and disappointed I drove home. The next day, I was so upset in not being able to catch her and bring her into safety that I decided to go to the Yacht Club as it was a beautiful day and thought I would just sit and enjoy the warm sunlight. After being there for about 20 minutes, I received a phone call from my husband saying that the people had not moved out last night because they could not finish all the moving. They told him that Betsey had returned and they were able to catch her and confine her in their garage until I was able to get there. I immediately left the club and drove down to pick up my very first rescue who I decided to call Betsey due to it being the Fourth of July. |
