I know that my first shot at being a dog mom kind of failed. But I am not easily dissuaded from such things. I know that Hoja was out of control for a couple of reasons. First of all she was out of her mind crazy. Second of all she and I had totally different ideas of the right way to behave. I wanted to enroll her in Chelsea's Mock Petsmart classes and have her behave like a dog in the states. You know, calm and obedient. She had different ideas. Hoja and I ended up parting ways after she crossed some pretty significant lines with my host family. All of this happened and ended by the middle of last November. It has now been almost a year. That is hard to believe.
So I had given up on being a dog mom for the moment. It just was not the time. But then in mid-June things changed. I had seen this little rat of a dog around my neighborhood for a couple of weeks. She was completely malnourished. Matted in mud, covered in wounds and in a loosing battle with scabies and parasites I decided I needed to try to at least give this dog a proper bath and meal. I had no intentions of anything else. But after I found out that her 'owners' had intentions to kill her because they had mistreated her and she ended up in her sad state, and after she slept for about a week straight on my porch, I knew there was no going back. I was a dog mom once again.
So this is Bella. (Pronounced Beya) It means beauty in Spanish. It was meant to be an ironic name since she was so ugly when she came to live with me. But it was also meant to be encouragement to her. I figured if I called her Bella enough, she might just live up to her name. She has made a full recovery in the span of two and a half months. Her scabies is gone. She lost all of her fur and grew in a new, beautiful and thick coat of fur. She could now be described as a little chunky.
The photo above was when I tried to feed her a hard boiled egg. She failed at eating it. Bella loves all types of fruit, but especially mangos. During mango season I would come home and there would be 5 or 6 mango seeds and skins on my porch. That is a lot of mangos for a human to eat, let alone a little dog! Bella is still a puppy for sure. She has one baby tooth left and is growing. But since she is a mutt and I have no idea who her parents were, I do not know how big she will get. I think she will stay pretty small. Which is just fine by me. :) Also she can already sit on command and shake. My host family things this is fantastic, they have never seen a dog that could shake hands. haha We are still working on waiting and laying down. But poco a poco we are making progress.
Bella is now super beautiful and so well behaved. I would like to think it is my excellent training skills, but I think she is just too afraid that I will kick her out to do anything too extreme. Some times when I pick up my broom or I walk towards her too quickly she will run away or flinch like she thinks I am going to beat her. It is so sad. She is so starved for love and positive attention. It is lucky for her that I have plenty of it.
So I had given up on being a dog mom for the moment. It just was not the time. But then in mid-June things changed. I had seen this little rat of a dog around my neighborhood for a couple of weeks. She was completely malnourished. Matted in mud, covered in wounds and in a loosing battle with scabies and parasites I decided I needed to try to at least give this dog a proper bath and meal. I had no intentions of anything else. But after I found out that her 'owners' had intentions to kill her because they had mistreated her and she ended up in her sad state, and after she slept for about a week straight on my porch, I knew there was no going back. I was a dog mom once again. 
So this is Bella. (Pronounced Beya) It means beauty in Spanish. It was meant to be an ironic name since she was so ugly when she came to live with me. But it was also meant to be encouragement to her. I figured if I called her Bella enough, she might just live up to her name. She has made a full recovery in the span of two and a half months. Her scabies is gone. She lost all of her fur and grew in a new, beautiful and thick coat of fur. She could now be described as a little chunky. 
The photo above was when I tried to feed her a hard boiled egg. She failed at eating it. Bella loves all types of fruit, but especially mangos. During mango season I would come home and there would be 5 or 6 mango seeds and skins on my porch. That is a lot of mangos for a human to eat, let alone a little dog! Bella is still a puppy for sure. She has one baby tooth left and is growing. But since she is a mutt and I have no idea who her parents were, I do not know how big she will get. I think she will stay pretty small. Which is just fine by me. :) Also she can already sit on command and shake. My host family things this is fantastic, they have never seen a dog that could shake hands. haha We are still working on waiting and laying down. But poco a poco we are making progress. 
Bella is now super beautiful and so well behaved. I would like to think it is my excellent training skills, but I think she is just too afraid that I will kick her out to do anything too extreme. Some times when I pick up my broom or I walk towards her too quickly she will run away or flinch like she thinks I am going to beat her. It is so sad. She is so starved for love and positive attention. It is lucky for her that I have plenty of it.
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