Bella, Yellow Labrador Retriever Female, 7 years old

Bella was sprung from an overcrowded kill shelter, surrendered to the shelter because her family didn’t have time for her 🙁  Bella, you couldn’t have landed in a better place!

July 25, 2018

Bella is a total sweetheart.  She is full of energy first thing in the morning an is just so excited for her food.  Usually within a half hour she’s back to her calm, sweet self.

She absolutely loves sleeping on the bed with our son Josh all night and happily goes to his room when it’s bedtime.

July 22, 2018

Bella is a sweet 7 year old yellow lab who currently weighs in at 58 pounds.  She is house trained, up to date on her vaccinations and spayed.  She is a true gem!

Bella is a mostly calm girl who loves to just be around her people.  She enjoys laying at your feet….or should we say ON your feet, or snuggling up on the sofa beside you. However, she is also happy just napping in the same room as her people.

She LOVES when it’s time to eat!!  Bella will literally dance around doing a happy “tippy tappy” dance and a hoppy jump up and down till you can get her food bowl down for her.  She doesn’t jump up on people just up in the air cause she is so excited to eat.

Bella can be less than gentle when taking treats since she’s so excited about eating but has been getting better at learning to gently take a treat.  She also can counter surf if food is left sitting on a counter, usually only when no one is around.

Bella is such an affectionate dog who simply wants to be loved.  She will do well in a variety of homes, but we feel will be best in a home that has people home more often than not.  She gets along very well with other dogs and is quite submissive to them.  Our test with cats at the vet showed that she has no real interest in them.  She basically ignores them.

She is so happy all the time and her tail wags so hard she gave herself “happy tail”.  It is healing quite well, but something to keep an eye on.  Bella is well house trained and therefore not crated.  She would do best with a family that will continue to allow her free roam of the house and not try to crate her.  Could Bella be the right girl for you?

July 19, 2018

Bella is becoming a champ at sitting when told to wait for her cookie and Jim can get her to stay while he walks away with the cookie in his hand.

She continues to be such a joy. She definitely does not like to spend time outside…she goes out to potty then wants back in. Even when we are out at the pool she doesn’t want to stay out with us so we think she will do best with someone who understands this and won’t force her to spend time out in the yard.

We are still working on taking treats more gently. Sometimes we do good with this…and sometimes not. The hungrier we are, the more aggressive.

Bella is all done her Prednisone and today is her last day of antibiotics.

This girl is a true gem. She just wants to please and be loved on.

July 16, 2018

Bella continues to settle to be a total love.  She is definitely showing that she’s an early morning girl, which is not so fun for her not early at all foster family .  She greets each morning with exuberance and utter joy for the food she knows is coming.  She jumps around, does her tippy tappy dance and simply can’t wait to eat breakfast.  She is generally calm and sweet all day.   She certainly has energy but is also very happy to just kinda chill and hang with you.

We took 2 trips to the vet today.  Foster Mom called and asked if they could perhaps show us how to wrap her “happy tail” since we’ve tried several times and it just keeps falling off.  They were more than willing to give us a lesson on how they do it.  However, as soon as we got home…off it came hahaha.  I called and they asked that I bring her back again, which I did.  This time we never made it out the door to leave before it came off again.  She has just such a happy tail, always wagging, and it just flies right off.  The staff were all laughing over this.  Good news is that her tail looks really good and there is no open wound at all at this point.  It was decided that the best thing is to leave it unwrapped and try (not an easy thing) to keep her from hitting everything with it.  They did send me home with all kinds of wrap supplies in case we see it getting a sore on it again.

She absolutely loves to lay on the floor at your feet and is happiest when she is touching you in some way…usually laying ON your feet.  She also likes to cuddle up on the sofa, but doesn’t need to do that all the time.  She is so soft and fluffy it’s a joy to cuddle with her.

She has complete free roam of the house, but in all honesty, someone is almost always home.  She’s always very good in the house and hasn’t tried to eat or chew anything that she shouldn’t.  At worst…she does some counter surfing, but even that is not constant. We simply keep food off the counters and she stays down.

The biggest issue is bedtime.  She does sleep in with our son on the bed with him.  We think she would prefer to be in our room with us and our dogs, but has a hard time settling down and wants to be on the bed with us all night, which we don’t allow.  I’m sure that wherever she ends  up will get it figured out.  She has really been such an easy and loving foster dog.

July 14, 2018

Bella continues to do great!  She seems to prefer being indoors over being outside.  When we all want to lounge out at our pool, she ask to go back inside.  She is perfectly find indoors by herself while we are out back.  She doesn’t have much interest in toys just yet, but hopefully that changes as she learns what fun they can be.

She met my niece’s 2 year old son when they came to swim yesterday and was absolutely great with him. She basically sniffed around him and allowed him to meet her, then kinda did her own thing.  She didn’t jump up (which she’s never done anyway) or bark or anything…just nice calm Bella 🙂

She does like to counter surf some and did get a half of a cheesecake while we were outside hahahahaha.  However, she is on Prednisone and we were warned that she would be extra hungry.

We left her home alone with our 2 labs tonight while we went out to dinner to celebrate our son’s birthday.  She did great and we came back to everything right where we left it.  She met us at the door with her happy, waggly tail.

She still sleeps with our son, but for the past couple nights has cried at his door and seems to want to come be with us.  We will try her in our room with us and our dogs and hope she sleeps on her dog bed and not our bed as she is used to doing with our son.

She still like to pee a lot when outside, but it seems to us that she thinks that’s all the outside is for and that she needs to make the most of her time out there peeing while she can.  Maybe she had limited access to potty before?  When inside, she is perfectly fine…no accidents of any kind and is happy for several hours.  She knows the door that means outside for potty and let’s us know when she needs to go.

She continues to just be a total sweetheart and joy.  She is the fluffiest pup and so soft to touch and pet.  She still can take her treats not so gently and we are trying to work with her on that.   Her little happy tippy tap food joy dance is adorable to see.  We’ve also seen her fall asleep while sitting up lol.

July 8, 2018

Isabella, who we are calling Bella is now with us as her foster home. She has spent her time exploring and getting lots of love.  She is panting pretty good and peeing outside ALOT.  She had some dinner, but not too much. However, whenever she sees food she does the cutest little Happy feet dance. She is a snuggler and settles down nicely if your willing to sit on the floor with her…snuggles right up.

Definitely thinks it’s ok to put our paws up on the counter 🤣.

She is such an incredible love and I’m sure will find her home fast. What a great girl.

Areas of concern are her very dirty, maybe infected, ears and the constant peeing…which could be nerves or maybe an infection?  She doesn’t seemed bothered by the ears but maybe she doesn’t know different at this point.

She seems happy and has a constant wagging tail.

July 9, 2018

Bella had a very good night last night.  She slept on the bed with our son since our 2 resident dogs sleep in beds on the floor of our bedroom.  She slept all night and didn’t stir until Jim went in to get her.  Her foster dad and I on the other hand didn’t sleep as well since we were concerned all night about Bella, not knowing how she would be especially with her wanting/needing to pee so often.

Due to constant head/ear shaking and a very sore, bloody end of her tail, we got her to a great vet asap who fit us in between appointments!!!  Bella loved the car ride over to the vet and was super calm and friendly to all she met at the vet’s office.

Bella had extremely dirty ears and a very severe infection in both ears.  The vet put an antibiotic deep in her ears and it will stay in there for 2 weeks and hopefully heal the infection.  She also has “Happy Tail” and had that treated and wrapped in a bandage that needs to be changed every 3 days.

The good news is that there is no sign of a UTI.  Not sure why she needs to pee so often, but hopefully that will resolve as she relaxes more.  She was sent home with more antibiotics and also prednisone.  The vet said if there is any kind of uti or bladder infection starting that didn’t show up, the course of antibiotics she is on will take care of it.

Stay tuned for more updates on this pretty gal!