All my life, I’ve been prejudiced, carefully excluding certain undesirables from my life.  But now, so far down the road, I’ve come to realize-I’ve been beagleized.

            Being beagleized isn’t terrible, relatively speaking.  Yeah, the critters only grow to 15 inches, and look like rats or chihuahuas depending on their positions and dispositions at any given moment.  Heck, that cartoon hero Snoopy is larger than the actual beagle.

            Compared to the great danes my mother adored, and the one we have now, beagles are little mites, too easy to step on or lose, to fast to catch.  Even our beloved Rottweiler and my husband’s pit bull, small dogs by my definition, are immense compared to the new guy, Elway.

            I knew a beagle once—actually, there were two of them—and they were owned by my childhood nemesis turned friend turned crush, Bobby Hester.  Tony is the only one with a name, he lived outside, and was the most annoying dog I ever knew—and I really had few dealings with him.

            Elway is like one of my frequent ADHD kids at school—non-stop energy, an utter lack of attention, a pint-sized terror—and the cutest thing in the world.  Elway can jump higher than Shamu, proportionately, drag me as easily as the great dane—or at least, tread air as he tries to drag me—and look so heartbroken when he doesn’t get his way that he cracks me up.  (I try never to laugh at a child who’s “acting out”, my grandkids or students—but it can be difficult to keep a straight face.  And Elway’s just as funny when he doesn’t get his way.)

            So why I was so leery of beagles?  I’d heard they were untrainable.  Ummm…I might have heard right.  Snoopy wrote; Elway eats writing.  Snoopy had endearing qualities—okay, I can see why Schultz made Snoopy a beagle.  Elway’s a very loving little thing.  And that’s the rub—he’s just so little!  I’ve never understood miniatures, and a beagle’s default size is a ruler plus 3 inches—if you get the big ones.

            But now, in spite of stepping carefully only be to bowled over by a ten inch projectile, in spite of worrying constantly about being faster to the door than the dog if the great dane decides to open the door—in spite of all those worries, I have to admit that the puppy my son insisted I take as a Mother Day’s gift is the funniest dog—and the funnest—I’ve had, and my life has been filled with neat canine friends.

            I’ve been beagleized—and I suppose I’ll be the better for it.  If I survive the laughter and the chase.