Bella

It was May 2005. I was unemployed and doing odd jobs, anything for a buck. I was driving Silver Flame, our family van, pulling a lowboy trailer on the freeway when I noticed a young puppy running along the shoulder. When I passed the black dog, I pulled off the freeway onto the shoulder, opened the driver’s door, and the puppy jumped in. I had to reach down to pull it up into my lap. I closed the door and continued towards home. The puppy was a Black Lab wearing a blue collar. I called home, and when Jennifer answered, I said to come out to the front yard and bring the kids; I want to show them something. When I pulled up to the house, I opened the door, and the black puppy jumped out and greeted everyone. This was the first time our family met Bella. We already have two dogs, do we really need another? She had a blue collar on but no tags.

In our backyard, we have a section of the yard fenced off that we call the pen. We put the puppy in the pen and let the other two dogs get to know her through the chain link fence. We saw that they all liked each other, so we opened the gate to the pen and all three dogs started playing. We knew someone out there was missing their puppy, so we made up some signs and posted them around town on telephone poles. We even took the puppy to the vet to check for a chip, but there was none. After about a week, with no one having called looking for her, we decided we would keep her and that we needed to name her. We kicked around some names, and our Niece Mary offered the name, Bella. Bella fits this young dog perfectly, so she will be Bella.

The three dogs, Ginger, Zora, and Bella, became the three amigos. They were nothing alike. Ginger was a Cocker Spaniel; Zora was a Husky Mix, which I think also had some Chow in her; and Bella was an English Black Lab. They all got along well; not one of them became Alfa, but all seemed to be equal in each other's eyes. We live on the corner, and a lot of people walk in the evenings. All three dogs would bark as if everyone were a threat, especially if they were walking a dog. Our three dogs made for great guard dogs. Our neighbors enjoyed watching them as they walked past. Some would even bring our dogs treats and pass them through the chain link fence. One neighbor has German Shepherds, and walking past our house was part of their obedience training. I thought it was funny that we provided the distraction to help train other dogs.

Zora and Bella were about the same age; the vet thought they were born in the same month of March 2005. Zora was my garage dog. She loved going for car rides. Bella and Ginger liked going for rides, but did not beg to go as Zora did. Zora was my dog, Ginger was Jennifer’s dog, and Bella was Allison’s dog. In reality, all three dogs belonged to all of us; we all took care of them. Will is more of a cat person, but loved the dogs as we all did.

We noticed that the three dogs had a sort of pack mentality. They would work together to stalk squirrels in the backyard. I saw them spread out and reach three points of the outer yard, with an unsuspecting squirrel enjoying a pine cone as their focus. All at once, they would all three run towards the squirrel, and the poor thing had nowhere to run. Most of the time, it would get away and find a tree to climb. There was more than one time when we came home to find a squirrel skull at our back door. I guess it was their gift to us.

We have an old John Boat that leans against our garage in the back yard. That is where all three dogs would sleep. Each fall, I brought home bales of hay for the dogs, and I made sure there was plenty of hay under the boat. That boat ended up being our rescue when we flooded last August.

Last August 7th, Zora died in our backyard. She had lived a long life, and I still grieve over losing her. 20 days later, Hurricane Harvey flooded our area, and while evacuating, we lost Ginger. She drowned while waiting to be loaded into the boat. We were able to get Bella into the boat, and once in, she would not leave. She stayed in the boat while a good friend and I rescued 12 of our neighbors. Bella provided some comfort to some of the people we rescued as we were bringing them out of the neighborhood. When I got exhausted and could not go any further, I got out and rested at our friend’s house. My friends took the boat to continue rescuing neighbors. I don’t recall whether Bella stayed with the boat after that, but she did spend the rest of the day and night on the couch downstairs at our friend’s house.

A couple of weeks after the flood, we took Bella to the vet, and she got a clean bill of health. She weighed 85 pounds.

I really wanted to get another ‘garage dog’. We started looking around, and a friend told us about a litter of puppies that were free if we picked one up. Using pictures on Facebook, we found the perfect puppy. One Saturday, we drove about 2 hours to a town near Brenham, Texas, and Axle came into our lives. Axle is a mutt. He had Black Lab, Rottweiler, and Australian Shepherd in him, according to the vet. When we got Axle home, he met Bella. Bella had been depressed since she recently lost her two best friends, Ginger and Zora. We saw Bella gain new life when Axle came on the scene. Bella sort became Grandma to Axle.

Recently, we noticed that Bella was not eating all of her food and started to lose weight. Her bark became weak. We thought it was because of her age; she is now 13 years old. Then I saw her walking towards the backyard, and she fell. It was like her back legs gave out. We immediately took her to the vet. She got some medication to help her feel better.

Then, over the last few days, we noticed she could not urinate; she would really try, but nothing would come out. We took her back to the vet, and after some testing, we found out that Bella had tumors in her urinary tract. She now weighs 65 pounds; she lost 20 pounds in a short time. We had to face reality, given her age and her facing cancer treatment, we knew it was time for her to be put down. That was really a difficult decision. Yesterday, Jennifer, Allison, and I were at Bella’s side as she went to sleep. The last of the three amigos, our freeway dog, was gone. Rest easy, sweet Bella. Say hi to Ginger and Zora for us.