Heartlove Deary Emma Puffy: The story of her name.

Naming Bela was a process.
We went back and forth, round and round, tossing names out that the other would almost immediately denounce. Occasionally, we'd think on one, bounce it around...and then denounce it.

There were three main categories from which to work. 'Dog' names, human names appropriate for dogs, and then straight up human names.

We didn't like the dog names, in general. Spot, Blackie, Lucky (notice that most dog names are little more than adjectives). We actually toyed with the name Katherine for a bit. We would obviously have done this for our amusement only. Just think of it. Someone comes up to you on the street. 'What is your dog's name?' 'Katherine', we'd reply. We'd yell at her from across the park. We'd need to get her attention on a walk. "Katherine!-- "Katherine, come! Sit! Beg!"

We got my niece Olivia involved. 4-year-olds can have great clarity at times, in matters like these.
I told my sister to ask Olivia for a couple of suggestions.

Roughly five minutes went by from the time of request.
Then the text message came in:
Heartlove Deary Emma Puffy

Heartlove made a showing, but at the end of the day, we chose a human name that could work for a dog.
Béla. Hungarian. Meaning: Bright. Pronunciation: Bay-law.

I had heard of the name before in reference to Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, a band whose name I knew, but whose music I did not. I imagined Béla to be quite the woman, a statuesque African-American with her buzzing Flecktones working for her in the background. I later found out that Béla Fleck is a man. A white man.

Béla is traditionally a man's name. Had I recalled the 1984 Olympics (Mary Lou Retton's coach!), I would have been clearer on this. Remembering that Dracula was a Béla would have also helped.

Never the matter.

I heard a man (whose accent intimated that he may be closer to the origin of the name than myself) reprimanding his Béla (presumably a male) one day in the park.
BELAW!!, he bellowed!, BELAW!! -- while tapping his dog quite forcefully between the shoulder blades. The German Shepherd kept his head down, cowering.
Though this Béla's breed has always been my least favorite, that day I felt a sadness for the wiry-haired beast. He seemed to be ruled by this larger beast. And not in the most loving way.

Mike and I say her name a little more softly. Our pronunciation is without the W on the end. Bay-la, we say. Bela, we spell. (Usually without the accent, but we have recently mastered the alt+0233, so you'll be seeing the accent much more.) Not many grasp her name, though. Nearly everyone calls her Bella. Even close friends seem exasperated when I try to correct them. Her name is not Bella; it is Béla. It has an accent and one less L. It is deliberate in its difference.

When someone does recognize her name, I swell with pride.
I took her to to get her paws done recently, and the groomer asked her name.
"Bay-la", I sounded out.
"Oh! -- a beautiful Hungarian name", she replied.

I doubled her tip.

A Flirtation with Destruction

Bela was a perfect roomate from day one. She didn't have 'accidents' inside. She didn't try to sneak food, but rather sprang onto her ass when she saw you had something to eat, in hopes her good behavior would lead to you sharing it with her. She didn't disturb the home during the day and she slept through the night.

About two weeks in, she went ballistic.

She started by stealing 5 frozen sausages. (Which put her in real danger of maintaining Mike's affection - since sausage is one of his most revered foods.) She destroyed four pair of shoes. She opened and inhaled an entire container of espresso grounds (and then, thankfully - threw them right back up). She tore open a box of tea and sucked on the teabags. (Yes, I see she may have a problem with caffeine). She ripped up an antique Italian dictionary. She ate all 4 corners of a wooden prayer plaque -- The Serenity Prayer. (The very thing we are seeking - we often do not see right in front of us.) The picture above was taken on her final day of destruction.

We threw her in a crate. We crate-'trained' (is it training or just a padded jail cell?) for about two weeks. We hated the idea of her held up like that. Every time we left the house and shut her in it, we were filled with anguish.

We only kept her in there solidly for about seven days.
For the next seven, we did test runs. No crate use when we were leaving for short periods of time.
She succeeded! Day after day, we found nothing displaced.

So we freed the beast.

And she has been near angelic.

That said...every now and then...she will threaten us.
If we up-and-leave during a Bela-designated time (I swear, she knows the times that we don't have to be at work-- these being nights and weekends), she'll take items from throughout the house and place them in her domain, on her carpet. One shoe. A lid from a Rubbermaid container. Whatever the object be -- it is a token, a physical representation of her statement: "I will not be ignored".

Her threats work. We stay home, if not both of us, then at least one - most every single weeknight. Weekends we are less stringent, but like to keep her alone time to a bare minimum.

We didn't get a dog to see her when we occasionally stop by the house to change clothes. She keeps us grounded, aknowledging that time spent with family is well spent. And as long as we continue to acknowledge that, she'll keep our material possessions intact.

Bela's Bestie.

A couple of weeks ago, a new dog moved in upstairs. Charlie, the black labradoodle. You wouldn't know he was a puppy by his size, as he is almost as big as Bela, and soon to be likely two of her.

But you can tell by the way he moves. He flaps a paw against her face, in an effort to slap her into play. He falls down easily. He flops himself on the ground in protest when he doesn't want to walk.

Bela hadn't had any real friends prior to this. She generally prefers human companions to canine. We've seen her 'playfight' with another dog on maybe two occasions over the past year.

But we forced Charlie onto Bela, and then Charlie forced himself into her heart. We did the introductions, made some park trips together, urging her to give it a go. She didn't bite. For a good bit, Bela seemed pretty ticked that she was the object of his affections.

Then the match struck. And the games began.

Now, if she so much as hears his paws paddling down the stairs or his name being called, she runs to the door and sits, like a lady in waiting. Sometimes, when we come in from a walk, she goes to his apartment instead of ours. We've been told he does the same.

Be it love or friendship or one in the same, we are so pleased. She has a playmate! She's knocking him down, gnawing on his ears, and baring her teeth in happiness. Mike and I aren't quite used to it yet...her acting 'normal' and all... We stare, open-mouthed, constantly urging the other to "look at this!!" 

When the rain flew in last week and her park outings were kept to a bare minimum, we invited Charlie down to our place. A couple of hours in their fight ring (our one & only carpet) and she is ready to sleep through the night. She's usually covered in spit when he goes, but don't they say that when a girl is in love, she glows?

The Great Escape [Artist]

Bela revealed that she was hard to contain early in the game.
Mike had her in his mom's yard one afternoon, when he noticed she wasn't consistently present.
She was coming and going from...somewhere.
He found that she was quietly slipping out of the side of the fence, running around back by the train tracks (I do love that calming image...my dog trotting over train tracks, oblivious to anything but small mammals), and then coming back into the yard when she was done exploring. Wash, rinse, repeat.

There were bolder escapes as well. To be honest, probably one or two more than I can remember. (The brain will often turn off that which it doesn't want to recall.)

There are a couple that stand out, burned into my memory.

The horror of standing in the [Chicago Archdiocese] Cardinal's yard, watching Bela run 360's around the joint. Each second was what I thought could have been the last second before the second that I never saw her again. My head spun in circles, watching my dog mock my human desire to capture her.

The worst (can we really rate her runaways? yes, I think we can) was in Beverly. It was Thanksgiving Day. We took her to a lovely park and brought the ball out. She was into it. Oh, yes. And then...gone. In a flash. The residents of the house across the street from the park were outside. When they saw my god-awful expression and painful attempt to sprint, they yelled, "What's wrong?" -- "Our dog!", I exclaimed!

By the time I turned the corner - the one that Bela had turned a good 30 seconds before me (a LOT of time when you're talking about sprinting) and Mike a good 20 seconds (still a LOT of time when you're talking about sprinting), some other residents yelled the same inquiry, to which I responded the same.
They took no time messing around. They jumped in their van and headed down the street after my slow ass. Right before she hit 99th St. (a street with enough traffic to stop her, if you catch my drift), something happened. (God?) She turned. We threw her ball up in the air and the yellow caught her eye. We got her.

Mike and I were wheezing for a good two hours after the occurence. My legs shook for about 30 minutes (from a combination of fear and running faster than I am capable of running). Bela, on the other hand, was pleased as punch. She'd had a great little hunting escapade!

After a couple of brushes with Bela's boisterousness, I could barely take her to the park. I was paralyzed with fear. I was considering keeping her held up in the house, allowing her muscles to atrophy, running free no more. But I knew. Without her exercise, she's a miserable, miserable dog.

And we have been blessed with many months without an episode.

But recently, she has taken to running again. 3 escapes in 3 days. A terrifying percent of possibility of loss.

What is she escaping from? We don't think it's us. She seems to genuinely like us. I suppose she's escaping from captivity. She plans to return, but on her own terms and after she's done what she'd like to do. She needs wide open spaces.

I think the truth is that she's not escaping at all. She's a dog. She hears the call of the wild.

For now, we're avoiding parks with lots of trees (i.e. squirrels) and watching her like a hawk. (If you see her cock her head to the side, MOVE IN.) We give her treats every couple throws, to reinforce that it pays to return to us. I've enrolled her in another behavior class, to learn ways we can keep her tuned into us and only us.

Because she'll take a chance on a squirrel -- any one...but she's far too important for us to take chances on.

Riding in Cars with Bela

It became apparent soon after Bela's adoption that we would need a way to get her around.  It became apparent, really, the day we needed to pick her up. They arrange it so that the dogs leaving the shelter have their neutering surgery the morning of. As not all taxis allow dogs, and buses certainly do not --there was no other way to transport her, save our feet and her feet, walking in conjuction down a sidewalk.
This was not a possibility that day, as I knew she would be drugged beyond belief. So I frantically searched for a way to get her home. A 'Dog Taxi' came to the rescue. The genius (or rather, guy with a van) behind this company took my request for a pick-up over the internet, called me to confirm, and showed up at the shelter, waiting for Mike to exit with our new dog.

Soon after, we bought Bela a car.

Now, I had not owned a dog or a car prior to this, so I was a bit out of my comfort zone. But we quickly navigated craigslist, found a 19-year-old white Volvo (I've always loved their boxiness!), and slapped down $1100 for it.

It is as unreliable as they come. It's been towed off the Dan Ryan Expressway from the middle lane --of FIVE -- IN TRAFFIC -- twice. It makes a constant whistling sound. Being whistled at by a person can be annoying. Being whistled at by your car will make you down right uneasy.

The car is almost strictly for Bela-centered activity. We rarely take it out for our own devices or pleasures.
It is for trips to the dog beach, the 44-acre dog park in Lake Forest, city parks outside of walking distance, and destination trips. Where we go, she goes!

She likes to ride with her two backfeet on the backseat, the two front on the center console, and her face in between our faces. She will occasionally rest her chin on Mike's extended right arm. When we reach a speed above 60 miles per hour, she climbs down onto the floor behind the seats, curls into a ball and lets the vibrations lull her to sleep, just like a baby.

Today marks one year of car ownership. The now 20-year-old machine dies roughly every 3 uses, and has no radio or cupholders, but I'll be damned if it hasn't given us some great car rides with B.