BELLA
When I moved in with my friend Paul in 2012, I was so excited to be able to live in his beautiful home. What I didn't expect was to fall in love with his dog, Bella. I had met her a few times when I went to visit with my best friend, Paul's girlfriend, Barbara and I found her annoying more than anything. I loved pugs but she barked a lot and got underfoot too much. Then I moved in and my main concern was starting radiation treatments. Due to a spinal cord injury in 1980, I walk with a crutch and wear braces up to my knees and having Bella around was a little difficult especially with Paul's hardwood floors. Paul had built a suite upstairs for his son and family and when they left, I moved in and I was in heaven. Paul and I shared the kitchen and Paul was as easy to get along with as anyone I had ever met. He charged a very small amount for rent. After my first night there, I got up and went into my living room, sat on the leather couch that was left there, and turned on my laptop. I heard Bella run up the stairs and she ran into the living room, jumped on the couch and all over me. After greeting me for all of 10 seconds, she ran back downstairs. This became our morning ritual.
One night Paul and I went out for something. It might have been a movie with Barbara, I don't remember. But we came home and I went up the stairs to go to bed. It looked like Bella took a dump on Paul's rug in the hallway. Then we went out another night and the same thing happened. Paul felt that the rug must of had some sort of smell so he took it out on the deck,, sprayed it and cleaned it, leaving it to dry out in the sun.
Paul bought a small staircase to put in my bedroom so that when he stayed at Barbara's, she could sleep with me. I figured she would sleep outside of the covers, because of the difficulty pugs have breathing. But she would get completely under the covers, and snore very loudly. Then when she would hear Paul come in the house the next morning, she would run downstairs, mostly because he gave her a treat when he got home. But also, because she adored him.
Paul and I went out again one night and when we got home, I had found that Bella had climbed up the stairs, into my bed and taken another dump. So, Paul put a gate up so she could not go up again.
Then I would wake up, get dressed and sometimes she would be waiting for me at the foot of the stairs and sometimes she would be in Paul's office asleep in her bed while he played or worked on his computer. Other times she would be in Paul's bed snoring. He would make the bed with her still in it, and it just looked like a loaf of bread that snored.
My cousin Lowy came to visit me. Lowy is so sweet but also very funny. We sat on the deck and chatted while Bella was out and Bella laid down and Lowy mentioned that Bella looked like a piggy and the name stuck. I realized that this is not a nice thing to call a doggie but she didn't seem to mind. When workers came to work on the house or do some leaf blowing, she would be so excited to see them. They knew where her Snausages were, and they'd go into the laundry room and give a few to her.
About a year and a half of me moving in, Paul's melanoma had spread to his lungs and I fell outside and broke my hip. After surgery and a couple of weeks of rehab I came home and Paul was exhausted but ok. Then it spread to his brain and his children and sister came home to help. I wasn't much help at this time. I was using a walker and getting physical therapy. I was not to go anywhere except physical therapy and after a while I could go and do errands. Paul died very quickly and after about a week, his family left, and I was alone with Piggy. I slept in an extra room in the downstairs bedroom, and Bella slept on the left side of me, the side that wasn't broken. I couldn't sleep on my side at the time or my stomach, so I laid very still in the bed. I noticed I was talking in my sleep when I was in the hospital. I know this because I kept waking myself up. In my dream, I would be having a conversation with someone and out loud I would say something like, "I don't know. What do you think?" So now that I was home I would do the same thing. Only this time, Bella/aka Piggy would respond. Her snores would get louder or she'd make a cooing sound to me or a new sound I hadn't heard before. Paul's children graciously let me stay at the house until my hip healed. Friends and family took me to physical therapy, grocery shopping and out to eat. But Bella seemed to be the best support while I grieved Paul's passing. Then the weather started changing and I felt safer to go out on my own. Bella had a fenced in back yard but every time I opened the front door, she would get past me and run out. Sometimes someone would get her for me. The family was so kind and said I could keep her when I moved but I soon realized that I couldn't handle her. If I had a fenced in backyard, I might have been able to keep her, but having to walk her every day would be too much if I wasn't feeling good. And I never know from day to day how I would feel. So she moved to a family member's home who had a lot of land and a great love of animals. She was out of the state so I never got to visit her. I think that was the last hard thing for me that year. Paul's children were gracious and let me stay 6 months after Paul died until my hip healed. Not having her to keep me company was heartbreaking but I was grateful she had a good home. Her new owner posted some pictures on Facebook and sometimes a video. She had a much better handle on Bella's spoiled behavior. After a while I wrote the owner and she said Bella had passed away. I was sad, but every time I think of her, I start to giggle. She was a spoiled little girl, but she was very funny. She reminded me of me. I was a spoiled bratty kid, teen, young person. But I am very funny.
