Bella: Permanent Beast Mode

It’s still slow goings around the Olsen house lately, so there’s not a ton to blog about in terms of trips or races or whatnot.  I figured since I recently shared some Weej stories, it was high time to give Bella the blog treatment as well.

"It's about freaking time!"

Bella’s birthday is late October, so in a few months, she’ll turn 14 years old.  That’s pretty far up there for a larger dog (the last time at the vet, she tipped the scales at a slightly chubby 80 pounds), but she doesn’t show signs of giving up the ghost anytime soon.  Although she loves us (we think), she’s really become a cranky old cuss in her golden years, and we’re becoming somewhat convinced that she may live forever on sheer doggedness (heh!  See what I did there?) alone.

Don't let her adorableness fool you -
that's the face of a monster.

We first glimpsed our Bella as an 8 week old puppy living underneath the porch of a house in Jacksonville, Florida, where we resided at the time.  Our downstairs neighbors in our apartment building had a friend whose dog recently gave birth, and they asked if we’d like to see the puppies (we just had Weej at the time).  We obtained the address and headed over; of course, we immediately fell in love with the little ball of fur living in the mud, so we handed over a crisp $20 bill, and she was ours.  Upon taking her back to our apartment, we gave her a bath, seeing that she was infested with fleas; this many years later, I still remember the fleas fleeing (hee!  I’m on a roll!) the bottom parts of her body as we lowered here into the bath, finally ending up swarming her tiny head and crawling over her eyes.  In addition to the fleas, our little bundle of joy had just about every worm known to man, which was quickly confirmed by a trip to our local vet.  We picked up meds for the ringworm and tapeworm (“I think something’s waving at me…”) and started her on a heartworm regimen as well, just in case.

Weej says, "What is this terrifying creature

you've brought home?

I can smell her worms."

Bella was a truly horrible puppy.  She never really wanted to cuddle, although she loved to play fetch, something that continues to this day (albeit much, much more slower in pace), and she terrorized the other dogs in the area.  The downstairs neighbors adopted two of the puppies from the same litter, picking the dogs that showed Rottweiler markings, instead of the black Lab-type puppy we’d selected.  Bella used to have a wonderful time chasing the Rottweilers around the tree downstairs, gleefully romping around after them, while they puppy screamed and tried their best to escape her.

A German Shepherd puppy also lived in the neighborhood, and Bella enjoyed making him cry as well.  I distinctly remember one instance where a 3 month old Bella chased the German Shepherd (twice her age, so at that point, twice as big) under a parked car in the lot and circled the vehicle happily, all while the Shepherd yowled for its owner to come save it from this horrid creature.

Sleeping on Uncle Jim.

One day while we were gone to work/school, Bella busted free of her training crate, destroying pretty much everything in the spare bedroom of our apartment.  This included baskets, candles, books, pens/pencils in a school bag, the futon in the room, and so on.  I made it home first to discover the nightmare and phoned Chris, leaving a message for him to pick up a rug cleaning machine on his way home from work.  Apparently, my wrath at the dog came through loud and clear on the voicemail – so clear, in fact, that one of the gentlemen he was riding the bus with looked at him and said, “oh man, what did you do?”

In a rare cuddling moment.

Like with Weej, we have tons of Bella stories, and if more interesting things don’t happen around here soon, you may be treated to them in upcoming blogs.  I can sense your overwhelming excitement!

Later,

Amy