Bella

Sometimes someone special comes into your life, even for a short period, and just touches it. Well, that describes the newest member of our family. Over 1 1/2 weeks ago, my daughter found a stray chihuahua in the front yard, shivering on President's Weekend. Since the animal control office was closed for the holiday, we fostered the pup for the weekend, and then my husband called them on Tuesday morning to come and pick her up while we tried to find the owner thinking it was someone on our street. However, no one claimed her.

On Tuesday morning, when the animal control officer came to pick up the dog, my daughter started crying he couldn't take her and that the dog was hers now. Well, Sarah was finally convinced we could not handle another animal in our household, and begging the officer to let her say goodbye one more time, he took Bella out of the truck to allow Sarah to hold her again before finally saying it was time to go since he was trying to hold back tears.

Within the next hour after Bella left, Sarah had convinced grandma to let her have the dog if her owner didn't come forth and claim her. So after work that day we went to the animal shelter and put the adoption deposit down on Bella. For the next week, every couple of days, Sarah insisted on going out to the shelter to see "her dog". When the 7 day waiting period was over, and she could actually hold the dog and play with her during a "meet and greet", the shelter worker went to open Bella's cage and the dog ran out through the workers hands into Sarah's arms. The worker had to take Bella from her into the "play area" (shelter rules) before Sarah could actually get reacquainted with Bella. Within just a couple of minutes the shelter realized this adoption was going to be a good thing and immediately scheduled Bella for spaying the next day with going home the following.

Although Bella has her own fluffy bed instead of a box lid like she did during fostering, she's actually sleeping now back on Sarah's bed again. Apparently the dog rates more than her parents. The dog is allowed into my daughters bedroom freely and the parents have to ask for permission. Now how's that for messed up?