The devastation of losing my beautiful Bella made me retreat once again into myself. In a sense I know I was expecting it but the reality really hits you when it happens and takes you on a long and difficult journey you would rather not be on. ‘Only a dog’ - only those who have not really experienced the unconditional love and amazing personality of such a special little being can say that. I had been experiencing a lot of anxiety and stress over my beautiful little old lady Bella for a few months. before she took her journey over the rainbow and even started writing about her problems and my concerns in April. I just could not finish it as life with my little girl took precedence.

Below are a few images of Bella - the first one was taken a year after we got her - by then she had put on the weight she needed and was a beautiful healthy Podenco. The other three are of her much later in life as her little face became whiter and whiter as she aged but for me she lost none of the beauty she had when she became mine all those years ago. As you can see in the last image she was starting to lose weight. This was taken after I lost Harvey in 2021, Bella, felt his loss greatly and even though she was already sixteen at the time she seemed to age considerably after his passing.

I rescued her in 2008 from a local rescue centre when they told me she was three years old. So according to the maths she would have been seventeen this year and if we go by the norm of one of our years equals seven doggy years my little sweetie was around one hundred and nineteen years old. Unfortunately she had been having more and more trouble with her back legs, very wobbly, often going into Bambi on Ice mode when trying to stand still on the tiles, especially when distracted by food. She was also very unsettled during the night and I was often woken at all hours by her constant wandering from room to room quite disorientated. Poor darling by then could hardly see and her hearing was nowhere near as good as it used to be.

Having said that she was still as quirky and cheeky as ever and her sense of smell was working well. In fact I found her dragging a two kilo bag of cat food along the floor of the hall trying to rip open one of the corners about a month before her passing. Stolen, of course, from under the shelf holding the cats things. I had forgotten to shut the gate into that room.

Sadly as time passed she became more and more fragile. I needed to help her on and off the sofa as her legs would not do what her mind wanted. However, even at this time she was still eating and enjoying her food, loving being out on the terrace and loving her cuddles. Funnily enough she started approaching anyone and everyone who came to the house and enjoyed their petting. This was something unheard of when she was younger - we presumed due to mistreatment in her former years before I got her - she always shied away from people in fear.

The turning point came just two days before she passed, making things so much harder for me. The first day, when she stopped eating properly, eating perhaps one third of her normal amount, she was still eating her yoghurt treat and her carrot but both in the morning and evening she had no appetite for her food, this was when I started to worry. Bella loved her food so there was something radically wrong when she stopped. She was also becoming more and more disorientated during the day. She would come into the kitchen and look at me as if I should know why she was there bless her, she would spend ages standing outside on the terrace, thankfully it was not cold, but she was having trouble balancing. This all started on the Friday and Saturday turned out even worse as she did not want any food at all apart from the yoghurt and carrot. A friend visited on the Saturday morning and also said she seemed to have deteriorated overnight. I spent most of Saturday afternoon giving her lots and lots of cuddles on the sofa and in the evening she once again refused her food.

I had made up my mind to take her to the vet on Monday as I could not bear to see her this way but my beautiful little girl had other ideas and after I had gently laid her into her bed and said goodnight late Saturday evening she took her final journey over the rainbow in the early hours of Sunday morning 1st May, 2022 - a day I will never forget. Waking up to find her gone was truly devastating, nearly fourteen years this little sweetheart had been a big part of my life and then she was gone. I know in my heart that I was so lucky to have her in my life but the pain of losing her still gets to me even now. I am doing my best to distract myself with all the other things going on around me but the deep sense of loss lingers. I am very grateful to Bella that she chose to go her own way as I was dreading getting in touch with the vet knowing what I had to do for her sake on the Monday morning.

I love you Bella, now and always and miss you more than words can say.