Bella: The non-Pit bull

Daisy was smart enough to have learned to read had she wanted to do so.

This past July, we had to put Daisy, our 16-year-old puppy, down.  She was the world’s best dog (and don’t bother arguing with me or I will delete your comments.)  Daisy was part Lab and part something-else.  We were lucky to have her as long as we did since 50-pound dogs don’t live that long, as a rule.

Anyway, as anyone who has ever done the deed, it’s hard to say goodbye to a family pet.  As a result, my wife and I decided not to get another dog.   Not for a while.  Not at least until next summer.  Maybe not for never.

That changed.

By late August, my wife was looking (just looking, she said) at sites that offered rescued dogs.  And sending me photos and bios of these animals.  By early Sept. she had found one that we needed to go and visit.  It was a puppy that had come from a shelter in Standish, Michigan and was on its last day at the shelter and was supposed to have been put down.   However, the people at the shelter thought the dog needed a reprieve and asked a rescue group in Livonia, the city we live in, to come and get the dog and find her a home.

There's a new dog in the house.

Long story, short.  They did. With us.  The dog once named Meredith and then Lyric was again renamed: This time Bella by my wife.

And so we have a dog.  Again.  Bella is a good dog, smart, very friendly and getting big.   She’s about 60 pounds now and still growing.  All muscle and a fierce bark.  Which is what we want.  A dog that looks fierce but isn’t.  That makes her a lot like Daisy, a dog that was also a friend to all.

My daughter, the mother of my 2-year-old-grandson,  isn’t sold on Bella.  Primarily because Bella looks something like a pit bull, AKA American Pit Bull Terrier and she fears it may have some of the fearsome tendencies associated with that breed.

For that reason my wife did the DNA test in which you swab the inside of the cheek with something that looks like a cotton swab and then send it in for testing.  Yesterday, she got the results.  No pit bull genes found. Instead the lab said our dog is part Newfoundland, part chow and part Chow Chow with a little St. Bernard thrown in.

Not sure about those results.  But if true, Bella is going to be a big dog.  And  a friendly one.

That’s it for now, folks.