Beth looks a little disorganized, from her perpetually tousled coat, to the bold ticking speckled across her white patches, to her mismatched eyes.

Inheriting both the curly fur of her father’s waterdog ancestors, and the wiry hair from her mother, her medium-length coat is coarse and wavy everywhere. The hair on her tail is longer, giving the effect of a tangled and constantly waving plume, and some excess fur on her snout gives the effect of a short mustache and beard.

If solid-colored, she would be black with tan accents such as her legs, muzzle, and brows — but white-spotting breaks this up, splashing her underside and notably one half of her face. The white is ticked with black or brown spots depending on location. She has heterochromia: her right eye coppery-brown, her left a soft blue against the white.

She is average in height for a female, with a sturdy and almost wolfish build despite her overwhelmingly doggish appearance. While she shirks clothing, she often wears baubles from nature: shells, feathers, reeds, teeth, anything she can fit on a string or braid into her hair.

Summarized: Upbeat, friendly, empathetic, curious, playful, secretly shy, timid

One could be forgiven for not knowing Beth was ever anything but loud and upbeat -- a truth that she consciously tamps down herself, too.

As a child, Beth was quite shy and timid, more resembling her reserved and flighty father -- though she always had her mother's reverence for nature and her deep well of kindness and empathy. She has overcome much of her shyness through effort, especially in adapting to life in a community. These days, she is outgoing and excited to make friends. She's curious and eager to learn new things, and not afraid to get into lighthearted mischief or get filthy as she explores the beloved wilderness of the watershed. She jokes and plays with a childlike but self-aware boisterousness, eager to evoke smiles and lighten others' moods.

Parts of the personality she presents are traits incorporated from those she's lost: her mother's optimism, her sister's boldness. By emulating them, she hopes to fill the void they've left behind, both in her own heart and the world around her, and to mask her grief with a vestige of their smiles.

Like her mother, Beth is reverent toward nature and has a connection to the water, despite all that it has taken from her.