About Bella

Long post alert but please try to read; I'm trying find the best home for my baby girl �������� With an extremely heavy heart, I am having to re-home my beautiful and sweet female Lab/pit mix Bella. We have had her in our family for almost 4 years and she has been overly loved by us all. I adopted her from a shelter when she was '6 months old.' And i even took my other 2 dogs to meet her and everything seemed to be wonderful.. After having Bella home with us for a short amount of time, she became protective and slightly aggressive (but only to the other dogs) while eating during feeding times. We did what we could to nip that in the bud and separated them during those times. A few months then passed and she became protective and slightly aggressive over all the bones and chew toys that were randomly scattered around the house.. (we thought we nipped that also by removing toys while we were not around and only allowing toys when we were near - as she didn't behave this way with us around). Time came and went and more often than not, everything seemed like things were okay.. Until recently, about 3 months ago she and my white male pitbull got into a fight because my kids had yogurt at the table. I broke them apart and found that both were bleeding and limping as well as Bella crying tears of blood caused by my male pitbull. (He was just walking by the table the kids were sitting at when she got defensive of either the yogurt or the kids themselves). There were a few more minimal fights between then and now, over a tennis ball and some food with kids, but those fights abruptly ended because of people being present during her 'mood swings.' I have been in contact with a trainer who says that this is called 'resource guarding' or 'protection aggression' and he says that even with training it is very hard to eliminate from a dog who probably had to fight for food at a previous time in its life (this happens a lot with rescues) and dogs like Bella should usually be single animals. He says that this is something that only tends to get worse with time but with constant training, it could be maintained. Again on 4-12-22, I spent a few hours at the Pet ER - due to her biting onto my black male Labrador retrievers' rear end while he was walking with my husband along the fence line of our property. We recently moved to a home with much more property and thought that might help her because she will have more space to roam and maybe stay further from the other dogs. However, she now antagonizes the other dogs, the goats AND the donkeys. She has lived a happy and loved life with us! My son, especially, is absolutely devastated by the fact that we have to find her a new home and my mom guilt is out of this world. But unfortunately, as time goes on, she is becoming more and more of a negative addition to our family; as she has been making my male dogs unhappy for quite some time but is now causing serious, physical injury to them. Though this is a decision that is not made lightly and one that I have spent countless hours thinking and sobbing about, it is best for my entire family that we find her a good and loving home to go to that doesn't have other animals. Aside from her protection of everything under the sun; she LOVES her humans, has the sweetest heart, the softest fur, loves to cuddle and give kisses and is overall a pretty laid back and mellow pup. She has been to the dog park plenty of times and we have never had any issues there at all. She is very food motivated and she is the only one of my dogs that knows how to behave/walk on a leash. She is fully vaccinated and she has a clean bill of health. She is 5 years old, spayed, 90% Labrador retriever and 10% pitbull. She NEEDS to go to a home that has no other animals and plans to love and spoil ONLY her. I would like to re-home her sooner than later, as i have officially separated her from the other dogs and none of them are currently living their lives to the fullest. This is something that I am having a really hard time with so please only serious inquiries and please ask any questions you may have! Blessings, Kelsey

Pinal County
San Tan Valley, Arizona