Bella is a 4-year old girl, already spayed. She was recently rescued from the Merced Animal Shelter and is currently in foster care in Antioch with 2 other dogs. She is very short and weighs 41 lbs. She has all of her shots and comes microchipped. She just had a visit to the vet's office today, where of course everyone fell in love with her sweet disposition.

The biggest thing I can say about her is that she is very eager to be loved by people. Her eyes light up when she sees you looking at her and she immediately rushes to your side for some lovin'. She loves loves loves to be petted, and has quickly learned to sit before receiving pets (rather than jumping on people). She has great big, sweetie pie eyes and you can just tell how much she yearns for love. She's not pushy for attention either. All you have to do is look away from her, and she will leave you alone.

She introduced me to one of my neighbors today. We were getting out of the car and she saw a neighbor across the street working on her lawn. She immediately pulled me across the street. Since she's relatively light, I could've easily stopped her, but I felt it was time to get to know that neighbor anyway. When we approached the neighbor, she was extremely well-mannered. She just sniffed a bit and waited to be petted, and did not jump at all. Then she patiently stood my side as I spent the next 10 minutes talking with the neighbor.

We haven't had her for very long, but she has come out of her shell with the other dogs and has begun to play with them. She ran into a cat in a parking lot the other day. They just looked at each other and went their separate ways, so she is probably ok with cats.

At 4 years old, she is a calm dog and is the ideal temperament for an indoor dog. Having a yard is not necessary as she doesn't seem to require much exercise, though of course some walks would be ideal. She seems to most enjoy sitting by (or perhaps on) you to be petted. She hasn't barked at all, although she did make a kind of whimpering sound when she first arrived and was unsure of her circumstances.

Bella is very low-maintenance. She knows sit and is housetrained. She is also learning to sleep in a crate. She lets me pick her up and roll her over. She doesn't show any food aggression as she allowed a dog expert to put her fingers in her mouth and completely remove a treat (for which she was rewarded with TWO treats of course!). She rides well in a car (with or without a doggie seat belt), and is good on a leash after she gets over her initial excitement of being outside. She also let me dremel her nails and didn't make a big to-do about the strange sound like most dogs do, which really surprised me. She is very responsive to voice correction.

Bella is going to make somebody an extremely loving dog. Even though she is being fostered in Antioch, we don't mind traveling to make sure she finds her perfect home. In fact, on Monday, we will be driving an hour each way to go to Pt Isabel to see how she does there. She was fine with all the other dozen rescue dogs (she didn't even get excited when some of them were barking at her through the fence), so we don't anticipate any problems. I'll be back with an update.

Does anyone have some room in their home and heart for her?