Another Bella Update

November 12, 2008

Bella, the dog who ran across the street in front of our car and who I managed to coax towards me enough to get a leash on her and bring her home with me, is doing well. Yesterday she had her stitches from her spay removed and now she’s allowed to take baths, play in the dog park, and go to daycare. She will go to the dog park tonight. I am excited to see her run and run and run.

I haven’t heard again from the men who claimed she was their “guard dog” that they only fed when they felt like, never trained, never saw the vet or got shots, didn’t bother with a collar or tags or microchip,  couldn’t/wouldn’t keep confined in a fenced area, and never even named.

Bella, aka Belicose Wolfe (her full name), not only now has a name, she’s also got plenty of nicknames: Bells, Belly, Bel, Belsicle, and Bella-baby. Moreover, she knows her name. She also knows sit. And she’s learning “leave it”, stay, and quiet. Yes, that voice of hers has come out. She’s barked at a few strangers, so far only men. She has a very loud, relatively deep voice. If you didn’t know her, she might seem rather scary when she’s barking.

Her bark isn’t reserved for strangers, though. And even though she’s not barking at neighborhood dogs,  she IS barking at our cats. I am guessing our cats are the first cats she’s ever met and she’s learned that cats aren’t very nice. Our cats don’t really like dogs much and whenever Floyd has tried to play with them, they ignore him or run away. But with Bella the cats hiss and swat. It’s a pretty negative interaction. So, for now, we aren’t ever leaving the cats alone with Bella. And we’re teaching her “quiet” to stop barking at the cats. And we’re trying to associate the cats with treats so she’s not scared of them. But I’m not really sure any of that’s going to work much. We’ll see.

She sleeps through the night, so that’s great. And she’s basically house-trained. We take her out a lot to make sure she doesn’t have an accident and we praise her when she goes to the bathroom outdoors. So far she prefers our backyard to any other location, which is good in the bedroom, bad on the hiking trail. This morning was the first time in the nearly three weeks we’ve had her that she pooped on a walk rather than the backyard. It’s silly, but that was the highlight of my day today :) ha.

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Miscellaneous 

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Comments

2 Responses to “Another Bella Update”

  1. Judith on November 13th, 2008 8:04 am

    It does sound like Bella can use some Toonces Therapy. But you will have such a full house when I come that maybe that should wait until Christmas. But who knows…I might decide I need a demanding cat companion on my trip there.

  2. Houseonahill on November 18th, 2008 2:23 pm

    Her eyes seem so sad. She will be a happy happy baby once she settles. THANK GOODNESS for folks like you who rescue. She is a beautiful lucky gal! AND a blessing for your family I am sure.

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