July 10, 2000
DOWN HOME:
She may not hurt fleas, but Betsy bops bunnies
___Word about Betsy must be out on the local drainage ditch.
___A year ago, we had nary a flower in the backyard beds. And we had lots of fat-and-happy rabbits down along the drainage ditch.
___Almost every night, they feasted on our flowers. We never saw the burglarizing bunnies, of course. Like the wind, we only witnessed the evidence of their arrival.
___About as soon as we'd set (all right, as soon as Joanna set) any flowers out, a band of crazed plant-killer cottontails would descend on our yard and trim our flora down to the bitter-green nubs.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___I think they dined on the mum-looking things, ate the pretty orange doo-dads for dessert, and--I don't really know, but I strongly suspect--they smoked the pansies as an after-dinner treat.
___Not this summer. We've got loads of flowers in the back yard. The bright red thingies never looked better, and the orange doo-dads have pretty blooms, after all. Best of all, the pansies are absolutely glorious, especially if you really, really like purple.
___Rabbits still have the run of the neighborhood, too. I see them almost every time I drive down the alley. They're in the neighbors' yards when I come in from running at night. And, of course, they leave their tell-tale droppings all along the backyard fence.
___But they don't eat our flowers.
___I give Betsy all the credit. She's three-parts Yorkshire terrier and one part poodle. Sometimes she throws her right-rear knee out of joint and hobbles around on three legs. And, at about six or seven pounds, she's not much bigger than the adult rabbits.
___Still, she has what it takes to make an example out of those rampaging rabbits. Late this spring, she caught one of them in a corner, behind a bag of potting soil.
___If I were forced to pick a winner between Betsy and a rabbit, I'd take the rabbit, but Betsy won. She carried the bunny around in her mouth most of the day, like a furry trophy.
___The girls, of course, were furious. They never realized their precious pet could be a killer. Molly cried at the thought of her homicidal hound. Lindsay pledged never to pick up the pooch. Betsy, of course, trit-trotted proudly, oblivious to all rebukes. And she must have told the rabbit's cousins there's more where that came from, because they sure don't try to eat our flowers anymore.
___Now, asleep at my feet, she's her old sweet self. She doesn't look like she could hurt a flea, much less wrangle a rabbit.
___Sometimes, we decline to reveal our true natures, even to ourselves. But we can be sure God knows, forgives and loves us. Even more than I love Betsy.
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