Life with Bella 2002 to 2013.
I have started and stopped this piece for three years. This
has been a very difficult piece to write because I know the ending. It ends in
heart break, panic about not making a decision sooner and reminds me every day
of the loss of the most fabulous dog on the planet – Bella the tender hearted
Rottweiler.
Bella came to me as the second dog in the Baytown Humane
Society’s foster program. Her story convinced me she was a sweetie with a big
heart. My only reservation was how she would interact with Puddin, my large, long-haired
male Tabby cat who thought he was a dog.
Bella (whose original name at the time was Della, but
quickly changed to Bella when her inner beauty of heart and soul was revealed) was
picked up during a storm by the animal shelter in Pasadena, Texas. She was
scared and very pregnant. The Pasadena shelter had a policy regarding
Rottweilers, Pit Bulls and Dobermans. If owners did not come forward with proof
of ownership, euthanasia was the animal’s fate.
Bella gave birth at the shelter. All the puppies came down
with Kennel Cough and had to be put down. Bella was despondent. The girls in
the office felt sorry for her, so they brought her into the office area and
gave her a blue plastic pig to play with. Bella would carry the pig from one
girl to the next, set it in their lap and look up at each girl as if to say,
“Isn’t my puppy pretty?” And, yes, the girls would pet the pig and give it back
to Bella. No owner came forward. Close to time to say goodbye, the people at
the shelter decided to break the rules and call the Baytown Humane Society to
spring Bella for the foster program. I had a large yard, and the society knew I
was comfortable with large dogs after my first foster – a Doberman. Bella
weighed only 64 pounds when she came to me.
Our first test was the cat test. Bella was brought into the
back yard. I came out of the house with the cat. Strong arms were managing Bella in case
something went wrong. I had the cat in a death grip. We moved closer and closer
together while everyone said “good girl” to Bella constantly. I slowly lowered
myself to dog level. What was Bella’s reaction? She put her big old nose
against that cat and sniffed him in one long sniff as if she were vacuuming the
cat. Puddin was not a happy camper, but no hissing or growling sounds were
emitted. Puddin had been raised with Shadow, my Alaskan Malamute and Tina’s
crazy dog, Gretchen, so dogs were not strangers to him. He just didn’t like
being vacuumed by the big, black and tan Hoover .
Bella quickly realized she was safe with us and took to sitting and
snoozing with me on the couch. She never bothered the cat. They ended up
sharing space quite well. Until the Barbeque Episode.
We were grilling outside on a gorgeous day. Puddin decided
he needed to be an outdoor cat for the day. He spent his time hunkering down in
clumps of grass and flowers acting like he was the mighty king of the jungle.
After a short while something caught the corner of my eye. Bella was galloping
toward the cat. In slow motion I was shouting NNNNOOOOO while trying to run in
what felt like lead shoes carrying a heavy plate of raw meat to distract the
dog. I could not cross that huge yard fast enough. Bella hit the ground right in
front of the cat, went air-born and sailed right over Puddin. I was stunned.
Then Bella raced to a far corner to do it again. Barreling across the yard,
stopping at cat, jumping over – just playing like a crazy gal. Puddin was NOT
amused. I was relieved. Bella was just having fun at that old cat’s expense.
After just a few weeks she had my heart. I called the humane
society and asked if I could adopt her. All the necessary steps for vet care
were taken care of. From there it was a simple case of falling in love with
this giant creature. She started to gain weight and, before long, there was not
room for the two of us to share the couch for a Sunday afternoon nap. It was
more like, “This is Bella’s couch, and Cheryl can have that little corner.” Not
long after that she was sleeping with me. Again - this is dog side and that
little sliver is yours - became the norm.
Life went on over the years. Other dogs came to my home to
be fostered. Some came in quietly and gently. Others arrived frightened and
snapping. In these cases, Bella simply sat down and showed them it was safe.
She had that look as if to say, “Come on in here and settle down. You are lucky to be alive.”
She helped house train puppies for me. If I was busy at the sink and a pup
started sniffing the floor, Bella would bark at me as if to say, “Hey, pay
attention. This baby is about to mark your floor, dummy!”
Tina’s old dog, Gretchen came to live with us when Tina
moved to Ft. Worth
Around 2008 I stopped making my bed every morning. I would
make up the bed, put everything in its place and return home from work to find
the covers pulled back, the pillows pulled down flat and an indention from a
human sized body in the coverlet. One holiday I was at home enjoying my day off. I was quietly puttering around
the kitchen. Bella slipped past me and headed for the bedroom hall.
Within minutes, I photographed the evidence. She was “un-making” the bed every
day for nap time, taking her place where she slept every night. The photo I
captured of her snoozing on the bed became the cover for my music album titled Music to Sooth the Savage Beast.
There was the time she had to wear the giant cone after chewing her hip. She looked like a satellite dish that fell from the upper
atmosphere. My Facebook friends had a ball making comments. It made a complete
story for the blog. Here’s what happened:
After a
trip to the vet for Bella’s routine shots, I had weekend plans that
went completely out the window. She had either an allergic reaction to one of
the shots, or she was stung by a wasp when I put her out at noon on Friday. She
managed to chew and lick her hip until there was no hair on a 3.5 inch area and
tore her flesh until it was raw like hamburger. Back to the
vet. After treating it with medicine, Dr. Amy said I had to
keep Bella from licking it. Since the clinic didn’t have a cone
of shame large enough for Bella’s neck, I spent the first two nights connected
to this dog with a leash so I could tug her head away from her hip. Neither one
of us slept well.
Sunday
afternoon, the vet tech called my cell phone and said they located a cone. I
picked it up and we buckled Bella into it. This cone was so large I had to fold
it for her to go out the door. She was literally scraping the paint and plaster
off my walls as she navigated the house. And I think she banged it on the bars
of my brass bed about 80 times a night to let me know how much she hated it. In
the picture you can see my other two mutts behind Bella hanging their
heads as if to say, "Uh, we didn't do anything. Please don't make us wear
one of those fashion statements."
I leave
you with the comments from my friends on Facebook:
How many
channels can she get with that?
Holy Cow!
Did you get a permit from NASA for that satellite?
How’s the
reception for Russian radio?
That’s
one big cone of shame.
Latest
technology in satellite dishes – moves room to room with you.
Can I
borrow her? Our network is down.
Geeze that
thing is huge! But Bella’s huge!
Bella to
Mars. . . better be watching for those green people.
Yes, that picture says it all.
She often played invisible-black-speed-bump when I would
come out of the laundry room with a full basket of clothes. I would trip and go
flying. She licked my face when I angrily cried about a husband who was not a
very good person. She would let me wrap my arms around her, bury my face in her
huge neck and sob about dark times with mother.
Bella started showing health issues as she aged. We found
lung cancer glimmers. Meds were administered to fight it. Then Bella started
walking more to the right than straight. The vet sent me to a neurology specialist
in Houston .
Sure enough, the cancer had metastasized in her brain. Expensive tests were done.
A heavy artillery of drugs was given. We stayed on top of it, and the dreadful
day came when the vet looked at me and said, “We can continue this with a small
possibility of results, but I think you need to make a decision soon. This was
early 2013. I was already exhausted after putting mother into a nursing
facility in fall of 2012. I sold the Richmond house almost overnight and moved
to Baytown and lived like a carpet bagger living out of boxes. Life had just beat
me down. I could barely think at that point in time. I simply could not make a
decision at that moment, so I hesitated.
Easter rolled around and I went to play for my church across
Houston . I came
home to find that Bella had suffered a stroke on the carpet in the living room
and had tried to drag herself to the kitchen door. She looked at me confused
and scared. I ran to the neighbor’s house to see if Steve could help me
lift Bella into the car. He was away, but his wife promised to send him down as soon
as he arrived home.
I put the other dogs out in the back yard and lay down
beside her on the kitchen floor, still dressed in my Easter clothes. I put my
arms around her and told her how much I loved her, how much she brought into my
life and how she often made me laugh doing quirky things.
The neighbor finally arrived and helped me get her in the
car. I made the trip to Houston, weeping the whole way that Easter Day. The vet
let me stay and hold her. I spoke sweet nothings in her ear as she faded away.
When I turned to leave, the tech handed me some brochures about cremation. She said I
had three days to think about it. My decision was instantaneous. This dog
deserved to be memorialized. I did not want to forget her for even a moment.
A few days later I picked the ashes up in Brenham. I wrapped her sexy, hot
pink collar around the simple, but elegant, wooden box. The matching leash was
folded beside it. The ceramic plaque printed with “A Spoiled Rotten Rottweiler
Lives Here” was placed beside it.
I am so glad I took the time to make an impression of her
paw print with the kit Deb gave me a few years prior. I had tucked it away in a
drawer thinking I would make a Christmas ornament out of it. I removed it from
the “to do” craft drawer and took it to a friend who would paint it to look
like a rock.
Bella’s big paw that used to rest beside my face at nap time
on the couch was forever pressed into that lump of clay and shares space on the
shelf with the other memories.
But the imprint of those big feet, her soft brown eyes and
her gentle soul will remain firmly pressed into my heart all the rest of the
days of my life.
