Bella and Olive

Bella has always been the favorite in the family. She is 8 years old now but we adopted her when she was just a few months old.

When I was around nine, my dad told my family that we were going for a drive but he wouldn’t tell us where we were going. I was excited and confused because we had never done anything like this. I remember constantly asking where we were going until I annoyed everyone so much that my dad finally told us that we were going to look at puppies. At first, I thought he was joking. We had a chocolate lab, Molly, before but she had passed away a while before so I hadn’t really expected us to get a new dog so suddenly. We finally pulled up to the house and when we got out of our car, a swarm of yellow lab puppies ran up and I was in heaven. We played with the puppies for a while and finally decided on one of the girl puppies who seemed extra excited and really seemed to bond with us. We went into the house and paid for her then wrapped her in a blanket that smelled like her mom and left for home. I remember she was whining the whole car ride home and I felt so sad that she had to leave her mom, but my parents explained that she would grow to love us and not be sad anymore. While we were driving home, we started brainstorming names. It came down to Bella or Bailey and we took a vote. My brother was the only one who voted for Bailey, so our new puppy was named Bella. She was the center of our lives and I can’t imagine not growing up with her.

Fast forward 6 years and we decided that we wanted to get another dog. Since we had recently moved to a farm, we had more space and wanted to adopt a rescue dog. I immediately started looking online at all the shelters for a dog that would fit into our family. I fell in love with every dog I found online, so it was really hard for me to convince my parents because I would send a new dog I found online to them five times a day.

We finally found a dog that we thought was perfect. Her name was Bailey and she was a (very overweight) yellow lab. The first time we left her home alone, she chewed up everything she could reach and my parents decided that she wasn’t the best fit. It was very sad but they promised we would keep looking.

I think that it was meant to be that Bailey didn’t work out because she led us to finding the best dog we could have possibly found. Her name is Olive and she is the sweetest dog I’ve ever met. She loves attention and if you are not petting her, she will walk up and lay on top of you until you start. We didn’t know anything about her past except that she was found locked in somebody's backyard extremely underweight and dehydrated. We also didn’t know what breeds she was until I insisted we do a DNA test because I really wanted to know. It turned out that she was german shepherd, doberman, and staffordshire terrier which made a lot of sense considering what she looks like.

Now, Bella has a sister and they are the best two dogs in the world. They love running around on the farm and following us while we do barn chores, then sleeping for hours on end. I honestly can’t imagine life without dogs because coming home to an animal that is so extremely excited to see you every single day is probably the best feeling in the world.

If you want to keep up with Olive and Bella’s lives, you can follow them on Instagram @olive_and_bella.

Comments

  1. Elizabeth SingerApril 5, 2018 at 7:26 AM

    I thought this essay was well written and it really sounds like your voice. I enjoyed the order you used and I think that your introduction is attention grabbing and makes sense. Since I know a bit about the situation, I think it would be great if you discussed how Bella had to get used to not being the only dog in the family. I think that some tension or conflict would make this essay even better and that would be the perfect thing to add. Then, this might make reflection in the conclusion easier as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownApril 12, 2018 at 10:23 PM

    I think that this is really cute. Clearly animals are very important to you because of the way you talk and describe the dogs. I really liked the narrative of going to pick a puppy, then finding Olive. It was fun to read and I could tell you are very passionate on the topic. The beginning kind of confused me because I was unsure of where the essay was going based on the opening two sentences. I don't know what you were trying to achieve with that (suspense maybe?) but I find it almost unnecessary. I think you could just start with the surprise trip. Also, I'm not quite sure but I would like to see a little more reflection on each experience with each dog. I don't know but I guess something to think about. Great job :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mr. Kipling

Under my bed is a huge tub stuffed full of horse show ribbons. If you dig deep enough, there are ribbons from when I rode at barns that I left years ago. On the top are the ribbons that I have won on my current horse Kip, and all of the ribbons in between tell the story of my riding career. I have switched barns more than most riders do in their lives, and I have ridden at almost every barn in the Champaign area at some point. I was seven years old when I first started riding at my first barn and I was a natural. My confidence grew as I breezed through my weekly lessons and easily brought home blue ribbons at the local horse shows. My trainer at the time did not challenge me and always told me that I was great and didn’t need to change. I realized that this was not what I needed to progress as a rider, so I sought out a lesson at a new barn with the coach of the Illinois Equestrian Team. Instantly, my talent paradigm blew up. The jumps were high and the courses were complex. The ...
Read more

Doing Nothing is Still Something

I have pondered the phrase ‘doing nothing’ for a long time. People are always doing something. Even if that means that you’re just sitting in a chair thinking, then you’re sitting in a chair thinking, not doing nothing. If you’re watching Netflix, then that is something that you are doing. I spend a lot of my time ‘doing nothing,’ but I don’t think of it that way. Society thinks that relaxation should not be counted as a good use of time but I disagree. Relaxation is essential to having a healthy brain. If you spent all of your time doing things and work then you would probably explode. I don't think it is possible to actually be ‘doing nothing.’ I tried to think of how it could be possible and the closest I could come was floating in space not moving, but then wouldn’t you still be floating? Even if you found something to do where you were doing nothing, you would still be breathing and your heart would still be beating. I’m not sure if I should count this as something you are ...
Read more

Office Supplies

I still remember the satisfaction of looking at the perfectly stacked cans and boxes after reorganizing our pantry when I was a preschooler. By fifth grade, my mom forwarded me all school emails, asking me to let her know if there was anything that needed follow up, like a signature for a field trip form. I loved this added responsibility and was proud of my ability to manage big parts of my own life. It wasn't long before I discovered the office supply store. I made my family wait endlessly while I carefully searched for the newest organizational resources and the perfect decorative notebooks to use for my ever growing compilation of to-do lists. I was always the girl in my class who had her folders organized in rainbow order and would frequently win the weekly award for cleanest chair bag. I still consider myself an organized person today, but I don’t enjoy it nearly as much as I did when I was younger. I took my organization very seriously and was on the border of being very ann...
Read more