Bella Blue Completes Family

The Johnson family had been a two-dog family for several years, until one of their dogs passed away.

Bella Blue at the Shelter

“One of our dogs passed away about a year and a half ago, leaving us with our 5-year-old ’coon hound mix, Hunter,” said Sandy Johnson. “He seemed to be doing pretty well as an ’only child’ at first, but gradually became less active and didn’t seem as interested in hanging around with my husband and me.
“We started thinking about looking for a companion, but due to unforeseen circumstances, we weren’t able to do that until this past fall.”

Though Hunter is a large dog – about 80 pounds – he’s scared of small dogs and does better with females. So the Johnson family began looking for a medium- to large-breed dog.
“We also knew we wanted a dog that was younger than Hunter, but not a puppy,” Sandy said.
“I started looking at the humane society in Wichita and also various rescue groups in the Wichita vicinity, but wasn’t finding just the right one for us and for Hunter. It finally occurred to me to look at humane societies outside of Sedgwick County.”

The first website Sandy looked at was the Cowley County Humane Society website.
“There was this adorable Bella Blue that I kept going back to. Although I knew nothing about her at the time, I just felt like I needed to meet her,” she said. “As luck would have it, a friend of mine has a friend, Dovie, who volunteers for CCHS and contacted her.”

The CCHS adoption crew brought Bella to an adoption event the following weekend at PetSmart.
“My husband was ready to adopt her the minute he saw her. We adopted her that morning and immediately started spoiling her, and Hunter, with new beds and toys,” Sandy said.
“Hunter was so excited when he saw her. They immediately started running and playing, and they haven’t stopped. She follows her big brother almost everywhere, and if she’s not by his side, he comes to get her if there’s something important going on.”
Once a week, Bella and Hunter go to a doggy day care.
“She is so exhausted that she’s asleep in the car within two blocks of leaving,” Sandy said.

Bella Blue With Her New Family

Other than helping herself to a few Christmas tree ornaments, there hasn’t been any unexpected young dog “bad” behavior from Bella.
“Some of the things she has helped herself to have been our fault for not putting out of reach,” Sandy said. “She seems to learn pretty quickly and she tends to follow Hunter’s lead on a lot of things – although he’s been known to get them into some trouble.”

When asked how life has changed since adopting Bella, Sandy said, “Our life is back to normal. The house is a racetrack again for two dogs to chase each other, there are dog toys all over again, and Hunter is so much more active and happy.