Betty Bolté

My heart is aching today because my new dog has heartworms. She began the arduous and painful treatment to kill the little buggers as of this morning. This is my first (and hopefully only) experience with canine heartworms. I have to tell you, the combination of my vet’s tone of voice as she told me about the treatment plan and my online research as to the side effects and recovery period leaves me uneasy about the next 3 months or so. (more…)

I am coming out with a brief confession: I used to despise history class and all it stood for. Really. Couldn’t stand it. Dry, dull, a bunch of dates and places and names. So what? Who cares?

It turns out, I do, just not the boring facts and figures.

No, I want history to come alive, to learn about the lives of the people behind all the names, dates, places. That’s the kind of history I want to write about in my historical fiction.

Sadly, that type of living history is mostly lost to us, because the average person didn’t have time, money, or inclination to journal. Any journals that were kept most likely were written by the more affluent members of society. In some cases the journals were simply lost: by neglect, thoughtlessness, or act of God. (more…)

I’ve noticed a curious relationship between my dog, Delila and my dad. Normally, the relationship between a man and a dog is not unusual, but to me this one is unexplainable. Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

My family adopted Delila from the humane society in Indiana in 1999 when she was about 18 months old (and pregnant with ultimately 8 puppies, but that’s another story). She is a mutt, a cross between perhaps a Chow and an Australia shepherd, with a heart of gold. Fiercely protective yet gentle with my children, she quickly became a part of our family.

My dad moved in with my family -- my husband and two kids – in 1992 while we were living on a small farm in Indiana. In 1995 we all moved to a new suburb of Indianapolis. He is a retired photographer, and therefore no longer traveled as much as he had when he first moved in with us. He was friendly with Delila, but not overly so. He would pat Delila lightly on the head occasionally but no one would confuse them as being best friends.

And yet some strange link was created between them.

How do I know?

When my dad is ill, Delila goes off her feed. She lays around, she may even whimper. When my dad is hurting from a pulled muscle, say, or struggling to overcome the flu, Delila limps and hurts, too. My dad’s incontinence grew increasingly worse. Delila started using the back deck or even inside the garage for her “bathroom.”

When my dad was suffering from a cold with its accompanying congestion recently, he grew confused (from lack of oxygen, perhaps?). Delila started sleeping on the front porch instead of inside the garage – something she has NEVER done before. Was she confused, too?

Now I must tell you that both of them are “elderly.” My dad is 90, heading for 91 this year. Delila is 12, heading for 13.

What makes this strange is that my dad no longer lives with us and hasn’t for 3 years. Yet the two parallel each other in health and well being.

It’s freaky to put it mildly. Can anyone explain this relationship? Probably not. It just proves that there are interactions in our world, our universe, that we cannot understand. Even though we experience it and see it happen before our eyes. It’s inexplicable.

So now I keep an eye on my dog’s health as a barometer for my dad’s. How weird is that?