Bella was,& still is a precious,beautiful and dearly loved member of our family. We miss her so much. She was a gorgeous brown & white,smooth-coated Jack Russell terrier. She showed all the joy,exuberance,intelligence & loyalty typical of her breed. She first came into our lives in the summer of 1989. I had been working on my cousin's farm during the holidays & Tess(the farm labourer's dog) had had a litter of puppies. On the day of the Porlock Show my parents came to visit & there was Bella & her sister,the only two left from the litter,in a bucket. Bella scrambled round inside our car,into everything & full of fun. She put her head inside a polystyrene cup & got stuck,we fell in love,she was ours. She never stopped making us laugh for the next 16 years.
Bella enjoyed so many things in life. She had hundreds of toys, mostly fluffy & squeaky. Most toys got rolled on,barked at and had the fluff pulled out. She really enjoyed unwrapping her presents at Christmas & birthdays. Every Christmas she would unwrap her pressies several times over,she found it very hard to wait until Christmas morning! At Bella's first Christmas there was a mouse in the Christmas tree,that caused great excitement. Every Christmas from then on trees had to be checked very carefully for mice.
She loved snurfling round her garden, checking for mice, hedgehogs,cats & other tresspassers. She always helped my Dad in the garden,this "help" usually meant dashing round killing his gardening gloves! She loved a roll & squirm on the lawn and bark at passing dogs. It was great to see & hear her full of life & energy.
She loved her walkies. Dartmoor was her favourite. She would scamper headlong over the tors in sunshine & snow. She loved nothing better than a race through the muddiest puddles in winter or take a long dip in a cool stream in summer. She's had many holidays too; she's been to Cumbria,Wales,Cornwall,Yorkshire, Northumberland & Ireland. All in search of new bunnies to chase(she never caught one) & pub food to sample. She loved her tasters from every pub or cafe we visited. We had our bags checked every time we returned to the car,we hardly ever let her down!
At home she had so many funny little ways which brought joy to our lives. We all loved the way she would come in from her last tiddle at night & charge up and down the hall,hurdling every door threshold,growling & playfully nipping dad's legs. She enjoyed the attention & loved making us laugh. And there were spiders under the sofa; it was so comical watching her trying to stick her nose under the sofa, scraping with her paw to try to get to them. We only ever saw one spider but she was convinced there were loads there. The sofa came in for more punishment as well. Bella did like to keep nice clean whiskers. She would wipe them very carefully along the sofa after every meal,it was so funny to watch.
Bella was the most beautiful dog ever. She had the softest,fluffiest coat & the most beautiful,velvetly ears. She would sleep with her legs in the air showing off her white fluffy tummy. We had many nicknames for our gorgeous dog; Fluffy being one of them plus Poppet,Boo-Bo-Kiss,Tinky,Atta & Proper-Old-Baby. I don't know where these nicknames came from but she responded to every one & they all seemed to suit her.
There are so many happy memories of our Bella; photos,video clips,places & things which remind us of her. Very sadly Bella died of cancer one month after her 16th birthday,she died in my arms. Nothing will ever replace her. She was a very special & precious little dog, completely unforgettable. We're so lucky that she was a member of our family.