Some Guy Says

Bella the Dog

Yogi the Yorkie was, by far and away, my most emotional dog.

Here’s Yogi’s headshot for his Hamlet audition

Georgia the CLD (Cute Little Dog) was Just the Best Dog. Ever.

This is Bella in the early days of her recovery…those lips, those eyes!

Bella the Shih-tzu is the dog I have now.

I don’t mean to be dismissive or disparaging.

For me and Yogi, it was love at first sight. With Georgia, our bond was set within 30 minutes.

Now Bella, at five-plus years in, I’m still not sure she approves of me or even likes me.

I know for a fact that she does not like children or dogs. Were she a human being, I don’t know that I’d cotton to her much either.

See...in her way, even though she came from a very fancy life, she is a kind of a rescue. So the truth is, I have, over time, had to lower both her standards and her expectations such that we can actually live together. So I get it if she harbors resentment.

One compromise has been that she gets to run the joint.

Have you ever noticed that? Pets – and technology, for that matter – they train us to do it their way.

You have already guessed that she is the smartest dog I’ve ever had. I’ll give her that. And also the most entitled.

She’s just not a warm-fuzzy.

Since the day we met, I’ve said, “She gets sweeter and sweeter every day!” And she does, right? She’s still not a sweet dog...but she is sweeter.

I got her shortly – very shortly – after Georgia passed. Friends advised me to be quick to find another dog because, as Bobby put it, “You hold so much capacity for affection for dogs, and you don’t have any place to put that right now.”

And he was right, as usual.

So, with lots of folks jumping up to help me scout out a new pooch, I went on the hunt.

But I was picky. This dog was too old, that one too young. One was too big, and one was too little. One was too hard, another too soft. I couldn’t seem to find the dog that was just right.

So I had a talk with myself: Bob White! This is not a fairytale. If you’re looking to replace Georgia, you won’t. You can’t.

Truth is, I wasn’t looking for Georgia when I found her, and just-that-fast we were a total team. She needed me to find her — and I probably needed her as much, too — but who even knew who she was? She’d been a street dog for a while. She could have been anything, you know? A snappy, yappy, shedding, shitting, noisy little nuisance.

But she turned out to be...special. And so sweet. Mostly, my job was to get out of the way while she explored and discovered herself as safe and happy and loved.

And as broken and pitiful as she was when I found her, she taught me, too, that I am truly safe and happy and surrounded by love and loving people at all times.

Lord have mercy...what our pets do for us and give to us!

Anyways.

Ultimately, the dog I found was Bella.

Honestly, maybe it’s that Bella was already safe and happy and loved, but circumstances at home led to real disruption. Trust me: circumstances at home can do that.

The point...the point is...she was the antithesis of Georgia in just about every imaginable way. She’s certainly not snappy, yappy, shedding, or noisy. And all you have to do is to look at her to see that she, too, is a CLD.

I’d go so far as to say she’s a VCLD: Very Cute Little Dog.

No, the differences between the two dogs manifest in highly nuanced but also profound ways: Demanding versus Grateful. Clear and Focused versus Curious and Available. Privileged versus Street.

Here’s how it all came to be.

I heard about a dog that needed re-homing quickly. It was all very straightforward. I contacted a lady. She gave me the address. I drove out to see.

I entered a gated community and drove up to a mighty fine house. The lady and her father greeted me. Her husband was at work, and her two boys were at school.

And that was part of the problem. See...there was just a whole lot of testosterone in that house. The lady dreamed of having a little girl. But after one boy and then another, she gave in and got Bella, a full-on purebred baby girl shih-tzu.

And Bella became her pampered darling.

Just to be clear – and near as I can tell – shih-tzus are bred, mostly, to be worshipped and adored, and that is pretty much what Bella does best because that is how she was trained to be: to hold a place of devotion and affection within the household.

Nature or Nurture? You tell me. Probably both.

Anyway...

About five years in, the family welcomed a real live baby girl.

Things were fine – kinda sorta – until the baby became a toddler and started doing toddler things like pulling the dog’s tail, yanking on her ears, and poking her in the eye. For our little four-legged household goddess, things became both unmanageable and unbearable.

One day, Bella laid down the law, and she acted out badly.

Now, here I should say that, for her breed, Bella is big. She is definitely credentialed as 100% purebred shih-tzu, but she’s two inches longer, one inch taller, and five pounds heavier than average. She has enormous feet. To my knowledge, she does not smile. Certainly not when she’s annoyed (which is how she most generally presents).

All of which is to say that she can be physically intimidating for a small dog and emotionally troublesome for a little girl.

I’m not sure what she did, but whatever it was was enough to consternate the family. Dad put his foot down: Enough! Bella must go! Right away!

And that’s where I came in.

I walked into this beautifully appointed home. I couldn’t help but notice a considerable pile of stuffed garbage bags in the living room. They seemed out of place.

Hold that thought.

Bella bounded in, stopped in her tracks, and fixed me with the look of general disdain that I have come to recognize as just her way of regarding the world around her. You really can’t take it personally.

I had some treats with me, and when she followed commands – Turn! Sit! – I would give her one. Then another. Things were going great! We are both motivated by the promise of treats! Could this be our bonding point?!

Then I asked if I could pick her up. “Yes, go on!” So, I did, and she bit me. Hard.

I don’t think I dropped her, but I did put her down fast.

“Well, this has been great, but I think I need to head out.”

The lady rushed to say, “Well, then let’s get her loaded into your car!”

“Oh, I don’t know...I think...I think I need to think about...”

“No! You need to understand,” and here the woman fairly teared up. “She needs to be gone before my husband comes home from work today or else!”

Or else? Or else what? Or else...the dog? Or else...her? Or Else??

And now the lady was really crying, and I understood. Whatever else, this was a breakup, and it was going to be a bad one. “We need to move quickly! We need to get her in your car before the boys get home from school! Please?”

I mean, it was a lot.

The immediate scurry around the house while the lady and her father gathered up the garbage bags in the living room felt urgent and scary. I didn’t know what to do – what’s with all the bags? And NO, I am NOT picking her up again – but it was clear to me that we were in flight and that my role was to rescue the dog that had just tried to rip the thumb off of my right hand.

On the ride home, I didn’t know if she was going to try to scream as I would have, or shit in the car, or...wait! What about that baby? Had she bitten the baby?! Was she going to be a biter? Because then we are gonna have a problem!

Side note for those who are wondering: she has never bitten anyone since she bit me on that day, so…

Anyways —

I veered between wary and frantic. I called Cindy to have her talk me down. Here I was, I was supposed to be the hero in this story, but I felt like some wired dupe and a chickenshit.

By the way, if I just described your partner, you’re in trouble! You know that, right? What I mean to say here is...Bella and I got off on the wrong foot. We were at odds from the start. Neither one of us made this choice, and neither were we cheered by it.

Once we got home and I’d gotten her a little settled, I opened the garbage bags. They were full up with Bella’s things! I was astounded. There were Bags and Bags Full of Outfits! Toys! Special Grooming Products...for ears, teeth, hair, her feet for cryin’ out loud!

Bella might be my dog now, but she had been a goddess and a Barbie doll in a golden life in a gated home. Who was she to be going forward? This change was going to be hard on her.

When I pulled out an outfit to see what it was, she all over me: Mine! Mine! Mine!! Put it on me! Put it on me NOW!

She. Loves. This.

There was a pink puffer jacket with a big bow featuring a big rhinestone right in the middle of it. She adores that thing.

There were multiple Christmas sweaters, Halloween costumes, Saint Patrick’s Day t-shirts. One little shirt that has a bustle of orange tulle gathered at the bottom and a message that reads “My Lil Wil’ Thang!” When she’s wearing that, she fairly sashays around the house with a little extra flair, floof, and flounce.

My Lil Wil’ Thang in tulle, indeed. My suspicion is that she is way more calculated than that.

And that is the good news about Bella: she knows what she is doing and she is clear about it. I never have to worry about what she wants or what she is thinking — and she is thinking all the time...even when she’s sleeping) — because she shows me.

Sometimes, she’ll stand over her food dish and just stare at it. When I catch her eye, she conveys how annoyed she is that she has to go to even this much trouble. She looks at me and back at her dish and then back at me again as if to say, “Are you blind? Can you really not see what I’m looking at? Really? Then let me be clear: I don’t see anything, Bub! Ok?”

Other times, she goes to the front door and just sits facing it.

Everyone knows what that means.

I swear. If she just had thumbs...

Ten o’clock at night is toy time. She grabs her favorite little red cotton barn and shakes all the squeaky cotton felted pigs out of it. While I’m chasing down pigs, she grabs the owl she inherited from Bennie the Dog and chomps on it till it squeals, and suddenly the whole house is a flurry of fur and felt.

One night, I came home late from work and she was waiting at the door. She never waits for me at the door. At first I thought, Oh! How sweet! Then I thought, Nah – she’s not that sweet, she must really need to go!

Wrong on both counts.

She stamped her fat foot and made that “Harrumph” sound that shih-tzus make (Canetha calls it her Snerf), turned on her heel and put herself right to bed!

That little dog had just scolded me!

And I felt bad about it – like I deserved it.

Which I did.

When she falls asleep, she literally falls asleep. She collapses, and she’s dead weight and immovable. And for a little girl, she has a mighty snore.

I’ll say this: she is very polite. She waits to be invited before she jumps up onto her spot on the sofa.

And I’ll admit, too, that I spoil her. In our little space, she has five sleeping spots. Her days are spent chasing sunbeams to sleep in.

Surely, she lives my dream life. In my next go-round, I want to come back as one of my dogs. That’s some easy livin’ right there.

Bella will be 11 on her next birthday which is in December, so she has surpassed me in age...by a smidge. Still, she has a lot of puppy in her. This makes me feel hopeful about myself. She scampers and plays, leaps and twirls in the crazy happy dance she performs while I’m getting her dinner together. She strikes these amazing and nutty attack poses – Bam! Bam! Bam! – over things only she can see.

Or imagine.

See, pretty much, she’s gone blind over the course of the last year. At home, she knows her way around and her little sniffer gets her to where she needs to pee, poop, play, eat, and sleep.

But she hates to get in the car now. She hates going places. The smells are different. She can’t quite make out what’s coming her way. She really hates not being in charge.

Her confidence becomes incrementally more and more compromised by her inability to see. She is adjusting, which is to say she is changing. Her changes put me in mind of my dad and his macular degeneration. They put me in touch with some of my own end-of-life care training. They frame a lot of the changes in my world, my community, my art, my self.

Eleven years...12, 13 if we’re lucky...67, 68, 69...it’s all a pretty short ride.

I try to give her autonomy, but more and more she needs me. She cuddles more. She follows me. She stares at me.

I wonder what she sees, if she can even see me at all.

Strangers stop us on our walks to admire her. My wicked joke is always to say, “Would you like to have her?!” while extending her leash in my hand. Canetha and Daniel, Ginny, Kim, Bobby, Kevin, Blair, Lesley, Bo and Courtney, all my friends fawn over her and tell me what a pretty girl, what a sweet girl she is.

I don’t know.

But this one thing is for sure: she definitely is sweeter.

Photo Credit: Canetha Dodd

Some Guy Says is written by Robert Arleigh White and distributed via Substack twice a month — give or take — and benefits mightily from the editorial support provided by Canetha Dodd.

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