Bella’s Rescue Dog Story

Bella’s Story

At Labrador Rescue, it is a real team effort, in trying to do the best we can for our Labrador friends and match them to their perfect forever home like Bella’s.

Foster Carer Background Story:

Bella came into Labrador Rescue’s care as an anxious, obese, wandering stray with the most beautiful loving nature.

Bella was estimated to be approximately 10 years old and weighed in at 41kg. In her first foster home she settled in well with their other lab and the families young children.

Yet with such a great foster home, she still took upon herself to escape their yard.

Myself, having a Jack Russell x (rescue dog) who also had these same adventurous tendencies given the chance, I offered to see if I could help Madame Escape Artist by fostering her.

After watching her carefully for the first week, she settled in nicely with my 2 terriers and am happy to say never escaped my property.

The first foster carer had got her weight down to 35kg and by the time she was adopted she was 31kg. I’m sure that Bella felt like a new dog losing a quarter of her weight.

I knew she had to go to a special home, which would be able to deal with her adventuring tendencies and also be committed to keeping her weight down.

I was delighted when an application arrived, which included one of the owners being a vet. They were just about to have their first child, but as the first foster carer had young children I knew that wouldn’t be a problem. After detailed discussions on the phone with the Adoptive Family, I put Bella on a plane to her new family in the country. Over the past year she has flourished in her new home.

Updates from Bella’s adopted family over the first few months of living with Bella:

We go for a 40min walk first thing and about 30mins in the afternoon and she is loving her walks! She likes to keep an eye on where we are in the house, but once she knows, she is very happy to have a snooze in the kitchen. I have left her alone in the house for a few short periods and she has been absolutely fine. Anyway, just thought you’d like to know she is happy and loved 🙂 I just wanted to say we would definitely like to keep her! She has been such a good girl and already has lots of fans around the farm. She has fitted in so well, loves her walks and had her first paddle in the river yesterday. Of course we are more than happy for someone from labrador rescue to come and visit anytime if they would like to, otherwise we will continue to love her and look after her for the rest of her days. I just thought you would like to know that Bella is doing really well, its as if she has always been with us. She loves her swimming and takes herself into the lagoon half a dozen times on each walk! As expected, she is wonderful with our baby daughter. We had some professional photos taken before Christmas, and Bella stole the show. We now have a kelpie x lab pup called Tess and she and Bella are the best of friends – Bella is acting like a pup again!