Willie the blind Beagle
When blind Willie arrived at the ranch, we were expecting a boisterous, vocal Beagle. Well, he looked like a Beagle, but he didn't really act the part.
Willie came to us from a Beagle rescue group in Atlanta, Georgia, which had saved him from euthanasia in a local shelter. The lady who runs the group had lived in upstate New York several years ago, where she rescued a blind Beagle/Dachshund mix named Widget and sent her to us in Montana.
Widget has a 100% Beagle personality and looks like one, too, except for impossibly short legs from her Dachshund parent. (Widget thinks her real disability is being a Beagle trapped in a Dachshund body.) So when this lady asked if we could take Willie, we figured we were getting a second Widget, only with longer legs.
So much for that idea.
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Willie, it turned out, is a bit of a wallflower. He's shy and timid, the kind of guy who'd never ask a girl for a dance. There's none of that over-the-top, take-charge Beagle personality. In fact, if he didn't look like a Beagle, you'd never know he was one.
Enter Widget. She's now teaching Willie how to be a Beagle in a course we call Beagle Basic Training. (That's Widget with Willie in the middle photo above.) Widget is showing him how to be fearless, bossy, playful, and outgoing… all the necessary attributes to succeed in life as a happy and confident Beagle.
So with Widget leading by example, Willie is beginning to shed his bashful nature. We're pleased to report he's mastered the art of baying, an essential skill for a Beagle-in-training.
And although he's got more work to do, Willie is learning that the ranch is a place where you can really be yourself. Or, as the U.S. Army might have said, where you can “Be all you can Beagle.”
Widget's main message for Willie: You can't just wear the uniform on the outside, you've got to be a Beagle on the inside! We're glad to see Willie is really taking that to heart.
Pretty soon Willie will graduate from Beagle Basic Training, a certified Widget-approved Beagle. Which would finally make him, you could say, a legal Beagle.
