Ten Years of Bella 💜🐾

6 September 2016 – 6 September 2026

Ten years ago today, Bella came into our lives. ❤️

Although technically… she didn’t arrive alone.

We had picked out Bella, but when it was time to bring her home, her brother came with her too. So for a short while, we suddenly had two puppies.

At first, we thought perhaps we would keep them both.

But it didn’t take long before we noticed something wasn’t right.

Bella’s brother was bullying her.

She was the puppy we had originally chosen, and watching the two of them together made it clear that keeping both wasn’t necessarily going to be the best thing for her.

So we made the difficult decision to take her brother back.

I remember feeling sad about it. You don’t bring a little puppy into your home without becoming attached, even if it is only for a short time. But sometimes loving an animal also means recognising when a situation isn’t working.

And Bella stayed.

Our Bella. 💜

Looking through these photographs ten years later makes me smile. She was so tiny! Those enormous ears, that little pink harness, the tongue permanently hanging out and that cheeky expression already firmly in place. 😂

And apparently it didn’t take her very long to decide that the sofa, blankets and humans belonged to her.

Some things haven’t changed much. 🤣

Over the years, Bella has become so much more than the puppy we brought home that September day. She has been a companion, a protector, a professional thief of shoes and socks, and somehow even a surrogate mum to kittens who clearly didn’t care that she was a dog. 😂❤️

She has been there through changes, difficult years, happy days and ordinary days—the kind you don’t realise are precious until you look back at them.