This is my dog Bella.
I am her favourite person (my family will dispute this but ignore them) and I think it's because I saw her first and she imprinted on me like a duckling. As I walked over to her cage to meet her that first day, she pushed herself up hard against the wire to get close to me, so I could pat as much of her as possible.
Take me home, she said with her eyes. Love me.
Her name didn't used to be Bella, not when I met her 18 months ago. It was Ruckus and that should have been a clue. A red flag. An omen. "The man who brought her in said he found her on the street and he nicknamed her Ruckus," said Clare from Sydney Dogs and Cats Home when I arrived to meet Ruckus after Clare emailed me a photo of her looking small and scared and adorable. Ruckus? Ha. Oh how Clare and I laughed at the idea that this beautiful, timid little creature with soulful eyes and a scruffy face could cause any kind of Ruckus.
It was love at first sight. We called her Bella because she was so beautiful. To us. There is chemistry when it comes to adopting animals and I've felt it before.
We adopted our first dog, Harry from Sydney Dogs & Cats home 12 years ago and as he's grown older and our kids have become more independent, we decided we were ready to give another dog a forever home. We had a few false starts, dogs we saw on the website and enquired about. Dogs who had been happily reclaimed by their owners after arriving at the shelter or who had already been adopted before we could meet them or who weren't suitable for us. Some were too big, too boisterous, couldn't be homed with another dog, needed masses of exercise or couldn't be around kids.