Betty Flaherty’s Life
I got to tell you, the Betty sitting gig at Kelly’s is pretty pretty pretty good. I fly in, spend a day with Kelly, she leaves, then Betty and me hang out for 4 nights. Kelly gets back. We spend the next day together and I fly home early next morning.
That’s the general overview. Bottom line is I’m here to watch Betty. Keep her safe and sound, fed and walked until Kelly gets home.
Betty is very easy to take care of. She has a routine and likes to stick to it. Here is Betty’s prefect day. Which is most days.
Morning walk around 7am
Farmers dog breakfast
Lazy Morning
Mid day walk
Lazy afternoon
Farmers dogs dinner
Evening walk
Bed
This is Betty’s dream life and she has it down. The morning walk is a long walk around the neighborhood. Same way everyday. Stop at the median to pee, sniff all the good smells on Ocean Blvd. If she has to poop she’ll head back to another median to do her business. Then up the street to where there is a doggy snack jar that Betty loves to visit. Then back home.
Mid day walk is a shorty, quick one block up and one block over to ANOTHER dog snack jar. Pee along the way. If she’s good we go back the way we came. If she wants to poop or take the long way home we do. But mostly it’s an out and back, and all about the snack.
When Kelly walks Betty, the evening walk is a drive to the park then walk. Betty also has a “no-drive” evening walk in her playbook. That is, a quick walk down to Ocean, across to the median to pee, the cross the rest of the way over to the sidewalk at Granada beach. This is where soi dog Betty is in her element. There can be food scraps, street meat and the such that ends up in the landscaped area next to the sidewalk. Even if there is nothing she is smelling something. She’ll sniff and smell her way along until she’s had enough or until she poops. Then it’s home straight away.
The first time I came out to watch Betty, I was asking Kelly about walking Betty and she said “Betty will show you where she want to go.” That’s truth. Betty leads the way. I just make sure that she doesn’t dart into traffic (which she would do) or eat street meat (ditto). She pulled a bacon wrapped hot dog out from under a bush on my first walk with her and Kelly!
Around the house Betty likes to take it easy. She breaks things up by having 4 sleeping spots. Her dog bed in Kelly’s room, under Kelly’s bed, corner by the couch or next to Kelly’s WFH desk. She also has a nice little outside area on Kelly’s porch.
If Betty has a passion it’s logs. Kelly bought her one of these plush logs with holes for squirrels when she.first got her. She really took a liking to the log and pretty much nothing else. She would eventually chew the log to where it needed replacing and Kelly would replace it. One thing leads to another and now Betty has enough plush logs in her dog bed to build a plush log cabin !
Three walks, two square meals, filtered water, belly rubs, snacks, logs, and lots of rest.
That is Betty Flaherty’s life.
She’s come a long way from the motorcycle chasing street dog living days in Thailand.
