Saying goodbye to such a loving, sweet being as Bella is hard beyond words. We all go through painful times like this and it's a testament to how much we're willing to love and be loved so unconditionally. (And yes, that classic sappy Rainbow Bridge poem is a comfort, no matter how much it makes me choked up.)

I became a guardian for Bella twelve years ago. She's been part of my life for over a quarter of my lifetime. Her absence now is very much a big hole in who I am. Let's start filling that hole with a few good memories.

Bella's registered name is Glynnfarm La Belle Finie. She was born on March 28th, 1995, in Wisconsin. Her name represents the end of the line for her breeder. Her sire was Glynnfarm Archangel Raphael and her dam was Glynnfarm Freckles O'Neil. She ended up in Olympia, WA, at Linda Weisser's kennel. Linda is who we got Beau from. I remember visiting Linda's and Bella was standing up on the fencing of her kennel, barking for attention. Demanding attention. I also think she wanted out and to be in a loving home. Soon afterwards, Bella came to our home in Aloha, OR, and Susan started showing Bella.

Bella loved Susan, but wasn't too sure about me. If I stopped to look at Bella and smile at her, she panicked and immediately wanted to be elsewhere. Over the months, she grew to trust me.

Of course, drying her off with the air blower didn't help with the whole trust thing. She was a wild bucking bronco when time came to dry her long fur with a loud blower. I couldn't hold my ground while Susan did her best to dance around both of us, attempting to shoot her arm in momentarily to dry a little fur. Eventually, with the help of a doorknob to hold her leash firmly, she gave in and got dry.

One of our first expeditions with Bella was to Long Beach, WA. A logistical error on my part at Leadbetter Point State Park resulted in us taking the long, hot, exhausting way to get to the beach. Bella came across a patch of cool, wet, shady mud and immediately plopped down. "Feels good!" she seemed to say looking at our shocked faces, "come on, there's plenty for you, too!"

Beau and Bella played a lot. Unfortunately for Beau, he learned to play from me, which was a razz-ma-jazz float-like-a-butterfly scooting around style of chase play. Bella was much more a direct point-A to point-B kind of player, where point-B was Beau knocked down on the ground. Overtime in Graham Bella loosened up and started to scoot around, too.

In 1997, as we were moving from Oregon to Washington, Bella had her first and only litter of twelve puppies. Twelve! Susan visited Bella and Linda's quite often. I eventually managed a trip, too, to find Bella constantly being followed by hungry puppies that would wait for her to pause so that they could stand under her and find a nipple.

Two of her puppies, Bianca and Bijou, joined us for a while in Graham. They eventually found very loving homes that were especially big hearted when it came to helping the daughters make it through the initial onset bone cancer they both contracted. Eventually, Sarah - Bella's grand-pup - joined us for a while, too, and learned from Beau and Bella to wait in the corner of the field for neighbor Lawrence to visit with cookies.

Some where along the way, Bella broke one of her toes on her left rear paw. We got a cast for her and she got by just fine for a while as peg-legged Bella. She didn't let the peg leg slow her down at all.

Bella consistently demonstrated that she was the sweetest, most loving, gentle being I have ever known. But she did demonstrate one case of being not-so-sweet with Beau: destroying Beau's Spider toy. Beau had this multi-color dog toy that was a spider. When he held it in his mouth, the spider legs poking out looked like colorful sausages hanging out of his muzzle. One day, walking the acreage before mowing, I discovered Spider's squeaker. Not a good sign. Then I discovered leg after ripped up leg. I knew Bella would steal Spider on occasion and get rough with it. Spider: Rest in Pieces.

When Susan was in UWMC's rehab unit, Bella visited once and was convinced to jump up into the hospital bed with Susan to give Susan some one-on-one Pyrenees therapy. Seeing Bella with Susan in that bed is a pretty precious memory.

Bella demonstrated to my family an inspired strategic skill to get Beau's food. I'd feed them both at the same time, side by side. Bella would wolf her food down and suddenly startle as if she heard something. She'd take off, huffing that something was up. Beau - a slow eater - would ponderously raise his head. Bella would run into the adjacent field and begin barking as if attackers were flowing over the five-foot-no-climb fence. Beau would spring into action to back her up and run over to her full-throttle. She'd circle back around while he was charging out into the field and head straight for his food. Score!

During the time I was alone in Graham I found a lot of comfort in having Beau and Bella to come home to. On the weekend evenings I'd be downstairs in the basement, either watching a DVD or playing Halo or Buffy on the Xbox, after a long day playing farming catch-up on five acres. If I turned on the Xbox, Bella would make a bee-line for the couch and jump up. I'd be wedged in all the way over to the right and Bella settled down to claim the rest for herself and fall dead asleep. And there we'd be, late into the night, my hand reaching over occasionally to rub her and she letting out a contented groan.

During that time, I broke one of the golden rules of Pyr / dog ownership: I let Bella up on the bed with me. She was thrilled beyond words to have such a wonderful privilege ("Neener-neener, Beauregard!"). This habit had to be broken eventually via a couple of laundry baskets that stole all of her space.

Bella loved snow. She'd come in from the snow with little snow balls dangling from her legs. When she went out in it, she'd find a nice clear patch of snow and plop down into it, rolling back and forth. We laughed about her creating Bella-angels.

Elisa came to Graham at the end of 2002 and came to love Bella as much as I did. While I was away for a conference in New Orleans, Elisa, Beau, and Bella went for a big walk in the abandoned Christmas Tree farm across our property. And shortly discovered a patch of bees living in the ground. Thank goodness for thick fur.

With bone cancer taking over, Beau had to leave us in April 2004 and Bella became our sole Pyrenees. Right at that time, too, she suffered from pyrametria and had to go into surgery. She recovered fine and became healthy and strong (thanks to a lot of cheese and ice cream). Only, because of the changes in her body, her coat changed from a wonderful rough, working coat to which no dirt could cling to a fluffy, matt-happy coat. D'oh.

Our little Graham farm was fine for Bella and she got in a lot of running around. It was flat and wide open. Our Redmond Tree House is the exact opposite of Graham: on a hill, surrounded by tall firs and maples.

You can see the Sammamish River Trial from our house, making out the occasional flash of color as a bicyclist goes by. One day Elisa and I were walking on the trail, trying to look back in the mess of trees on the hill and figure out where our house might be when we heard a deep strong, distant, "Woof!" I looked at Elisa. We then heard, "Woof woof woof woof!" We laughed. It was Bella, filling the Sammamish Valley with her bark. She was The Pyrenees of the Valley.

She also brought with her a high pitched, small howl she'd let loose anytime the emergency vehicles ran their sirens along the highway. She looked so cute, with her head back, howling away.

Elisa and I would take Bella out on the river trail, usually parking at the junior baseball field and heading north. There's a small bridge that we call The Bella Bridge because that was the wise point at which to turn back with Bella so that she wouldn't be totally exhausted by the time we got back to the van.

One time on the trail we ran into another Pyrenees owner, right near the Tolt Pipeline trail. She had recently rescued her Pyrenees and we chatted for a while about Bella, and we mentioned how she used to have a companion named Beau. The lady stopped and asked, "She's that Bella? Of Beau and Bella?" Yep! Long ago in the adolescent days of the web I had put up a Beau and Bella website on Teleport to share some of the photos of Beau and Bella. Well, first it was just Beau (he was featured in a book "Dogs on the Web") then Bella joined him. I haven't updated it much so it looks about the same as it has for twelve years: http://www.ericri.com/pyrs/ .

A big daily highlight was letting Bella come inside. I would brush out the fir needles in her coat (what I could find) and then she'd bound inside, flop down on her side, and start rubbing and growling and groaning in extreme pleasure to be inside. She'd kick her feet up in the air and be puppy-silly. It filled my heart with love. Here's a short video of one such celebration:

Old age catches up with all of us, even Bellar-Smellars. Jumping into the dog crate in the van was the first to go. Then stairs in the house and on the deck. She went from sleeping with us upstairs on the third floor to being by herself in the basement at night. Her rear became weaker and weaker from the nerve under pressure at the base of her tail. Eventually, she couldn't walk down the hill anymore as part of our morning paper ritual. Then just walking out to our pole barn became a chore for her. We got some advice to modify and blend her food so that she wouldn't suffer from choke, but she became less and less interested in food. During all of this time, Elisa coordinated a regimen of massage, acupuncture, and chiropracticy to give Bella every opportunity to remain healthy and strong.

While we changed up her food (best food that she loves: Dynamite Ultimate Diet - thank you, Renee; 2nd to that: Redmond Paw's Cafe beef stew [ground up]). She'd eat a little. The RedWood Animal Hospital (always so comforting to us) discovered signs of probable cancer in Bella's body. At that point, we transitioned to caring for her in a way to help her enjoy every moment left.

Of course, one big memory she leaves is Santa-Bella. For the last few Christmas she's had to endure many many photos of a Santa cap on her head. Best Christmas present ever. Well, for us. Bella was a good sport.

Bella Richards - Glynnfarm La Belle Finie - 3/28/1995 to 4/30/2009 aka Belle Bear, Bellar-Smellar, Bellar-G-Smellar My flickr Pyrenees set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericri/sets/72157602473235568/

P.S. For friends and family, if you have digital photos of Bella, it would be a big gift to have the original sized image. Feel free to email directly to me, or Elisa, or put up on a file sharing place like Windows Live SkyDrive for me to retrieve later. Thank you.