She was supposed to be Earl's dog. Christmas Eve, 2008- the kids and he brought her home. She was adorable. I was not really a dog person. I like them all ok and we always had them because Earl loved dogs so much, but I much preferred an independent cat that curled up to me when they wanted to and ignored me when I wanted them to also. But once Jenna took her fat cat to college with her, I was ok without a cat too. Earl fell in love with his nephew's dog, a Boxer he had rescued, and when his nephew decided to breed his Boxer he promised his uncle first pick. And that is who he picked and named, Bella. He brought her home when she was 5 weeks old. She was supposed to be named after Disney's Belle- but Bella she became, so everyone always asks now are we Twilight fans. Umm...no not really... Earl had never seen the movie and he sure never read the book :) It's just who she became. She was learning tricks by the time she was 8 weeks old. She could sit, lie down, roll over. He worked constantly with her. Taught her to dance, taught her to stay. She is smarter than any dog I had ever seen, and my husband loved her so much, he came home every day at lunch to make sure she was ok, fed, watered, needed love. She was supposed to be his dog. But she loved me. I didn't do a lot of training, I petted, hugged, took her on walks. But I never thought of her as my dog, that is until we lost her. We had a family reunion in June of 2009, and took her with us. It was just over to Earl's brothers who lived in the same town as we did, and she'd been there before. They had her litter mate, Duke and Bella loved to run and be crazy with him, plus her Mama was there too. We thought it would be fine. But I left to go to the store with my sister in law, and Earl was in the pool and there was so many people and she couldn't find us. When I got back, I asked where she was, everyone thought she was in the house with the other dogs, but she wasn't. We searched the yard, and the surrounding woods. Earl and I walked down the road, his brothers and brother in law went out on the motorcycle, and their cars, and we searched, and yelled her name. For hours. Earl and I went up and down the interstate hoping to see her, yet hoping not to see her on the side of the road. The reunion was spent trying to find our dog. Where could she have gone? Why had we taken our eyes off her? My heart was breaking, worried she was hurt, or stolen, or God forbid dead. I couldn't imagine what the pain would be to lose a child, if I was almost paralyzed with fear for our puppy. We couldn't enjoy anything. We were numb. We couldn't eat, I felt bad for everyone else who sympatized with us. It was getting later, four hours later and we were back at his brothers house, just barely functioning really. I sat by the fire pit, staring into the fire and Earl was standing by the pool fence trying to have conversations with his family. Justin was sitting with me when suddenly he jumped up, looking behind us and off to the right. He hunched down and then took off running, "There she is!" He cried, she was at the edge of the woods. She had come back, and Justin ran to her calling her name, she came bounding to him, panting and jumping. OH Thank you God, I thought, and everything is right in the world again. Earl and I both ran to her, hugging her between us, scolding her, and she just licked our faces like "what's the matter with you two?" Earl finally ate then, and I put her leash on her and kept her by me the rest of the night. So she sort of became my dog that day. But once I lost my job and was home every day, especially after we brought Mom home, she became my shadow. It's like she senses I may need her at any moment. When I'm doing something for Mom, she sits at the foot of the bed and waits for me to be done. Sometimes I take her for rides with me when I go on errands in the car, even if I'm just getting groceries out of the car, and then driving the car down our steep driveway, she jumps in and rides down the driveway with me. After Mom's stroke, one day, I was exhausted, no one was home, and I just broke down and cried by myself. It's easier to cry alone sometimes, then you make no one feel bad, or feel like they need to comfort you, when honestly sometimes there is just no comfort to be had. I was sitting there, my head in my hands, when I felt a cold nose against my leg, and I looked down and there was Bella her head laid across my knees and her big brown eyes just looking at me with all the sympathy a dog can muster. I got down on the floor and wrapped my arms around her, laid my head on her head and kept crying. She never moved. She stayed that way, still as could be until I was done. Then she licked my face. Yes, that beautiful Bella, she's my dog.
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