Today we lost our little Belle.  She was a sweet little thing, one of 9 pups resulting from a neighbor’s amorous dog that was able to leap a 6′ fence!  My husband had had a lot of pets over his lifetime but this was the first one he had from the very beginning of life!  She was also named after hubby first Jeep, Annabelle.

She would anxiously wait for him each morning, and would not accept her morning bone until she first received her morning pet!  She loved to swim and would swim laps for hours at a time.

Sunday she had to be coaxed out for her breakfast and when she came out she was wobbly and would only walk in circles.  She didn’t lift her head for pets, nor did she roll over for tummy rubs.  She fell in the pool and had to be rescued.  After a call to the emergency vet hubby took her in.  (I stayed home to babysit momma dog who was quite upset)  They did blood work at the vet, it all came back normal, all vitals were good.  They said a ruptured ear might be the problem and to take her to our normal vet on Monday.  At home she became less and less responsive.  At 3:00 am hubby drove to work to get some things done so he could take her to the vet when they opened at 8:00 am.  Our vet said they wanted to keep her for a few hours, they planned to give her an IV and a steroid to see if they could get her responsive.  Hubby left her there, came home changed his shirt and headed to work, he had only been gone a short time when he receive the call our little Belle did not make it.