Pooch Was a Sound Companion to the End

The years of near deafness had left Bethel Ralston lonely, antisocial, embarrassed.

Too ashamed, she would say, to try to deal with other people. So she would shutter herself away in a tiny, four-bedroom trailer near Ojai that was sweltering in the summer.

It was easier that way. Until a little dog came along.

At age 66, Bethel finally found her ears, and a ticket out the door. Bix, a foot-tall, carefully trained terrier mix, became her ears. And, as she often said, her whole life.

It was the story of a lonely dog rescued from the cold cages of a Merced dog pound, and a woman saved from the throes of self-isolation.

Wearing their matching, bright orange vests, the two soon found themselves a mission. Every stranger they met and every employee or store manager who tried to deny them access would learn about the wonders--and the legal rights--of hearing dogs like Bix.

Along the way, Bethel learned that in the world she avoided for so long, some people do care.

If only this heart-warming tale didn’t have such a heart-wrenching ending.

As she slept on Thanksgiving Day, Bethel Ralston died at age 70.

At her funeral, one of Bethel’s daughters tried to assure me that no matter what Bethel may have said about being deserted by her six children, she really was loved. During the memorial service, another daughter spoke of how she had never loved her mother until that day, and that she regretted it.

I will never know why Bethel felt so estranged from her children.

All I know is this sad irony that keeps running through my head: that on Thanksgiving Day, a loving woman who had found so much to be thankful for in her senior years died alone.

And for a day or more, before anyone found her, the little dog was barking his little head off.

Barking and sitting on Bethel’s lap was his job when an alarm sounded, the phone rang or there was a knock on the door.

But for the first time since they met, Bethel wasn’t answering.

Bix is now retired from his job, safe and sound with Bethel’s dearest friend in Port Hueneme.

Bethel Ralston was not perfect. She was no saint. And she certainly wasn’t always happy.

I met Bethel a few days after a doctor had denied Bix access to an exam room. She had cited verse and prayer of every state and federal law she knew, just as she had done so many times before at restaurants, stores and public buildings that denied access to her and Bix.

Truth was, I was no different from that doctor. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a hearing dog.

“You mean, like, a Seeing Eye dog for deaf people?” I asked.

Sure enough. The poor woman was nearly in tears.

“I decided to fight it,” Bethel told me that day. “I said, ‘God, I’ve got a right to enjoy the last years of my life.’ ”

That she did. But the crusade wasn’t always easy.

At least three times, the foot-tall dog was run over by oncoming grocery carts at the supermarket. Properly schooled, the store manager let Bix sit in the grocery cart’s child seat from then on.

The folks at Bethel’s favorite Denny’s weren’t exactly thrilled about the furry critter at first. Properly schooled, the waitresses and managers became some of Bethel’s most treasured friends.

About a year after we first met, Bethel and Bix came back to see me. Bethel was in tears again.

Bix had been bumping into walls and furniture for days. He wouldn’t eat. He was losing weight. And the doctor said Bix had cataracts.

The hearing dog was going blind.

Deborah Sutherland, a Ventura attorney who had helped Bethel break down the barriers that confronted her, told me Bethel didn’t have “2 cents or the window to throw it out of.” The surgery would cost $1,900. And Bethel, dependent on Social Security, was all but broke.

Her plight gained nationwide attention and touched people everywhere. Some $12,000 in donations poured in from as far off as Mississippi. The “Bix Fund” was set up by the Ventura County Humane Society to help other hearing dogs with high-priced health problems.

Cindy Rolfe of Camarillo was so touched, she sent a donation and a new air conditioner. She was troubled when she read that Bethel would plant herself in front of a fan or sit in a nearby McDonald’s to beat the excessive summer heat in her trailer.

All Bethel could do was cry.

She didn’t believe so many people would care.

“I’ve never known that in my whole life,” she told me.

In the end, I know she still did.