On January 25th this year, 2 days after the heartbreaking task of having to put my beloved Puddles down, (who at the young age of 4 suffered from a serious auto-immune disorder, and had been going through all manner of tests, hospital stays, blood transfusions and the like), f I drove 3 hours to the breeder who was kindly letting me choose a new puppy, knowing how hard it had been for me to lose my prior loyal companion and the void it left not only in my heart but that of my dear Mom, who enjoyed daily dog-therapy visits at her home in long term care.

I spent quite a while watching the various puppies’ behaviour and interacting with them, with my heart somewhat set on a brown boy, Bella’s brother from the pictures I had seen. However, little Bella chose me. As the others played with each other, tugging ropes and chasing tails, Bella softly sidled up beside me and just …. stayed. I tried to not be distracted by those big pleading eyes, and to remain objective, but she was determined that I was her mother already. And so it began …

I had come, somewhat prepared -though the original plan was only to choose one, not take them home the same day. Bella changed my plans – as she has done many times since!

An emotional car ride home, the grief over Puddles somewhat subsiding as I realized all that “dog love” could be poured upon her successor (with a lot of hard training work ahead!) we went on our way.

Bella was nervous and threw up a little in her carrier, we took our time as it was the first time she’d been on a big ride, but decided we would do the introductions to Grandma before heading to the house.

Dear Mom didn’t seem to notice that this one was considerably smaller than the last, and I don’t think that mattered, all she knew was that it was soft, cuddly and comforting – therapy match made!

We left and headed home the last mile, with Bella in my arms, and as the Jeep pulled into the driveway she projectile vomited all over the wheel, my lap, the cupholder, you name it. Not much, as she was but barely 5 pounds of cuteness, but that was our welcome home. Payback to me for the long ride!

Within a half hour of being in the house, handling the obligatory necessaries young pups are known for, and fixing her food, Bella pushed out of my arms and fell about 3 feet onto the vinyl floor. There was a slight whimper, then a frozen stillness in her, and she didn’t make another sound … I was panicked, devastated, afraid to check her tiny little limb in case I made anything worse. Within seconds, I was on the phone asking for help – my brother to come because I didn’t trust myself to drive to the vet hospital safely on my own, and was not prepared to let Bella out of my arms for fear her heart would stop (or mine!), calling the breeder to get advice, calling the emergency vet hospital as it was the weekend – it was chaos! Well … without going into it all … this happened!

The next few days were tough to say the least – first, making sure she’d pull through, tensely awaiting surgery results, dealing with meds, checkups, cones on/off for feeding and outside trips, crate and playpen/no running/jumping restrictions, and trying to keep her occupied all day for weeks on end with chews and toys and me!

Well … plans for our February trip to Newfoundland were cancelled, visits to Mom continued as best we could, work continued, but let’s just say the next few weeks were very Bella-high-maintenance, and then … Covid lockdowns….

It was an interesting summer. Bella loved her newfound freedom running and playing with her healed leg, got involved in much-needed training after being tended to so one-on-one for so long, engaged in day-care with other pups and attended agility classes – passing with flying colours. Despite my tiredness at all that puppy care involves that first year, we made it through with only a few items destroyed and a few in-house accidents. The end result is I have one very spoilt pup who thinks my sole purpose is to attend to her needs. I attempt to change her mindset on this as best I can, but it is a challenge!