Welcome Our New Addition to Nikitaland: Introducing Bella

We are proud to announce that on Friday night, we added a new addition to Nikitaland as we adopted a new little bundle of energy & joy from the APL at the Adopt Around the Clock 24-Hour Pet Marathon.  There were 400 dogs & cats that needed to find their forever homes, so it was no surprise to us when we arrived and PetSmart’s parking lot was jammed packed with cars & people all over the place.   Cages were all over the place under tents in the parking lot filled with adoptable dogs and puppies and inside PetSmart it was filled with all the kitties and cats.  It was like a Furry-Palooza going on and we were so glad to see the great turnout that this event had.   We heard that the adoption goal was 300 pets, and we think that the total adopted was 237, so a lot of animals got to go home and start their new lives in their forever homes and that is awesome!  This is one great photo of how happy one certain puppy was to be adopted by a nice couple!  (Thanks Annette for adopting me!)

We spent a lot of time walking around meeting & greeting all of the dogs & puppies and when we saw a new batch of animals arriving, we knew that we had found our new puppy.  Bella, is what we named our new puppy, but it took us until Saturday morning to figure out what to name her.  She arrived in one of the vehicles from the APL and we saw her on the lap of one of the employees, and when she was brought into the tent area, we followed her.  We could not take our eyes off of her.  We ran into Uncle Dave from the APL who helped us with our adoption of Nikita two years ago and he took Bella out of her cage so we could hold her.  It was love at first sight!  We did a lot of thinking while we were there and wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing, as we had Nikita on our mind and wanted to make sure that she would be ok with a new puppy in the house, but after deliberating a bit, we decided to adopt Bella.

We had to head into PetSmart to grab a bag of puppy food since we did not have any at home, and PetSmart had given us a lot of coupons with our adoption, so our first bag of food was on them!  Thanks PetSmart!  Bella was already drawing attention from everyone who walked by us as they all had to pet her.  It seemed like deja vu all over again, as this is what happened when we walked through the store with Nikita just two years earlier.  We were finally on our way home with our new puppy, and we found out that not long after we left a huge thunder storm hit and a lot of the tents were blown down and they had to move all of the animals inside PetSmart, but all the dogs were safe which was good to hear.

As for me, I have not been able to sleep much since Friday night, since I have nominated myself to take Bella out every time she woke up to cut down on the accidents in the house.  I nominated myself so Daddy could get a good nights sleep as he has a very important job and we don’t want him heading into work with little sleep.  We love Daddy so much & want to thank him for everything! We were lucky when we adopted Nikita, as she did not whine or whimper not even once from the first day we brought her home, but Bella is a completely different story.  Friday night was hell from all the crying, but with each day that has passed, she has gotten a lot better at night and sleeps quite a few hours before she wakes up and needs to head outside.  Phew, I knew this was not going to be easy, but we did a good thing and gave another little puppy it’s forever home.

Nikita took to Bella quite well, and was wagging her tail when we brought her into the house for the first time.  It will take a little time for her to get used to having another dog in the house, but we feel that she will be ok.  We had noticed that Nikita was a little anxious or stressed a little because she was drooling all over the place like a Saint Bernard.  When we took Bella to the vets on Saturday for her first check up and she weighed in at 8.6 pounds, and Nikita got her nails clipped while we were there, we had asked the vet what the drooling was all about and he confirmed that she was a little stressed with the new puppy, but it will pass.  As of today, Nikita has not drooled, and that is a good thing!  The one thing though that Bella is doing to Nikita is running behind her and biting Nikita’s fluffy tail and Nikita hates this & runs like mad to get away from her.  Hopefully in time, Bella will be cured of this so she does not stress out Nikita.

On Sunday, Nikita took a little break from Bella and sat down on the couch to watch the Browns Game.  The Browns were playing the Philadelphia Eagles and unfortunately, they lost by ONE POINT!  Ouch, that hurts.

We have a lot to celebrate this week as Nikitaland is turning two years old on the 14th, and what better way to celebrate our two years than with two beautiful dogs, Nikita and Bella.  Nikitaland is now Nikitaland & Co., because we have made room for one more fluffy pup in our life, with lots of love to share.  Not only do we have two reasons to celebrate, but I have a third reason.  It’s because I get to spend every day with the love of my life to which I owe everything to.  (thanks for everything my Sweets!)

One of the neat things about Bella is that she is portraying some of the same traits that Nikita did when she was a puppy, as climbing into the fridge as Bella did this and went straight for Daddy’s wine bottle and started licking it (just leave some for Daddy when he gets home).

So, stay tuned as we will have many more stories to tell with the addition to our happy home!  Enjoy our small sampling of photographs of Bella, as we are sure that there will be many many more to come!  Enjoy & welcome Bella to her forever home!