Category Archives: animal rescue

Bella Bella

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BELLA BELLA

Our friends Jon and Beth lost their dog yesterday. Bella could have been the poster child for pit bill rescue. She had the face for it.

Bella came to her family through a rescue that pulled her from breeding squalor. No one will ever know how many litters of pit puppies Bella gave the dog fighting world. As Jon says, if we ever find the people who ran that ring, there will be human blood and jail time and no regrets.

Beth and Jon didn’t know Bella had cancer when they got her. She was cute and had a personality twice the size of the room and she picked them out of the lineup of adoptees at the event by licking Beth. A lot.

Multiple tumors showed up in her stomach not quite a year into her adoptive life; the vet said they were due to Bella being “force-bred,” repeatedly and often. Her body would not have been given time to rest between litters: wean, breed, birth, wean, repeat.

A surgery could take them out, but they would reappear. What did Jon and Beth want to do?

Realizing they couldn’t save her life, they set out to give her a life to savor. Bella had a full year of royal treatment: a soft bed in Beth’s office, two soft beds at home. Walks: lots and lots of walks. Bella never met a blade of grass she didn’t want to sniff, or a squirrel she didn’t want to chase.

There may have been cheese and other things dogs normally don’t get because of health concerns; since Bella spent a year stretching out the sympathy, she got a LOT of forbidden stuff. Did I mention Bella’s natural intelligence? Jon and Beth swear she could even work the TV remote.

She could also counter surf; Jon came home unexpectedly one day when Bella had been home alone, and she was up on the kitchen counter, exploring her options. Thinking fast, Bella barked, “Thank God you’re home! I found a spider!” She was a very clever dog.

And sweet, to everyone but other dogs. Well, and squirrels. Bella could not hold her licker around any human; you were getting a sponge bath.

While Jon and Beth would have liked to give Bella more than the glorious two years they had, Bella knew how good she had it. She knew her retirement would be golden and that should take it all for what it was worth because her early years had been wrong in every sense of the word. I suspect she even knew that her life was a testament to the power of dog rescue and the horrors of dog fighting. But most importantly, she knew Jon and Beth adored her, and she adored them right back.

The Value of Fifty Cents

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Jack is on time for a change – but with sad news – –

We have a number of ‘neighborhood cats’ that have no fixed abode but know they can always find food outside our front door. There are about four or five of them, and they consider yards on both sides of our street as their domain.

That is obviously a problem on a fairly busy street – –

You may have guessed by now – –

A small white and grey kitten showed up a couple of years ago and joined the gang. I christened him 50% because he was half white and half grey. That quickly shortened to 50 Cents and Wendy thought that was appropriate as he seemed to be missing a few brain cells (not the full shilling as I’d say in Scotland)!

He was a regular at our front door and we were eventually able to trap him and get him neutered so there wouldn’t be any 25 Cents. The only picture we have is of him as a kitten in the trap!

On Sunday evening there was knock on our front door which is unusual as most of our friends know to just come in. I went to investigate and a young man with a backpack was there. I recognized him as one of a number of folk who walk past our house regularly and who live in nearby rental apartments.

He explained that he’d just seen a cat get hit by a car in the street outside our house. The car didn’t stop and he went and checked the cat but it was dead. He lifted it off the street onto the sidewalk then came to see if it was ours. What a contrast between the driver who didn’t stop and the young man who could have kept walking but didn’t.

I double checked and, yes, it was 50 Cents and he was dead but it looked as if it must have been instantaneous – a relief at least.

It may seem strange for me to be grieving for the death of a stray cat but I know them all and they have distinct personalities. I did name him as well, so there’s that too!

God bless that thoughtful young man – – –