Bella at Fort McHenry in August 2013 celebrating her birthday.
For Christmas, I received the chest mount for the GoPro. For those who don’t know, the chest mount wraps around your arms and attaches the camera to a plate that sits on your chest. So when I was finished building this website, I thought it was time to go outside in the snow with the GoPro. However, getting footage of me shoveling the walk isn’t that exciting. So I made the chest mount as small as I could and attached it to my dog, Bella. She is 9 years old and is a bulldog/scottie mix.
So I hit record and let her do whatever she was going to do in the snow. After about ten minutes, she was ready to come in and I investigated the footage and uploaded it to YouTube. Since the snowstorm was a big storm, affecting much of the North East of America, it is being covered nationally. I tweeted to Ginger Zee from Good Morning America and asked her to look at the footage Bella shot. It’s not every day you get to see a snow storm from a dog’s perspective! To my surprise, she not only tweeted me back, but asked if she could use it on GMA. I said absolutely and set up my DVR to record the show the next day.
I woke up to find my current job was going in a few hours late and I waited as long as I could on GMA before going out to shovel the walk and dig out my car. Once shoveling was over, I check my phone and find out that GMA had aired Bella’s footage from a friend who saw it live! So I went to the DVR and checked the show. Sure enough, there was my nine year old puppy on a nationwide morning news show shaking and playing in the snow. I was so happy to see her on TV. I got countless likes and nice comments on Facebook about Bella’s new found fame.
Bella and I at the SPCA walk in 2007
Even though it is a dream to create a video and have it seen nationwide, I am most proud of Bella because she has such a great story. My family adopted her when she was just a puppy at nine months old. Before we adopted her, we know little about her past. We know she was abandoned and left tied to a pole in Baltimore City, eventually picked up, and brought into BARCS (Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter). They deemed her a “fear biter” and put her on death row. A rescue group, Recycled Love, came into BARCS looking for animals to rescue. They originally wanted to take Bella off death row, but the staff at the time said they could not let animals on death row go out to rescue. Somehow Recycled Love was able to get Bella out of BARCS. We found out later, Bella was supposed to be put down an hour before Recycled Loved had arrived at BARCS, but they were running late. I found Bella on petfinder.com and fell in love when I read her description and it talked about her “nubby tail”. We met with Recycled Love and we were lucky enough to adopt her.
Now Bella has had her issues. She was extremely protective of my family, gets anxiety when my family separates, and she would protect herself. She was a fear biter. My family and I took Bella to obedience classes for years, we had her learn socialization with other dogs, and even had a pet psychic come to our house and talk with her. After all of that, Bella eventually calmed down and trusted that we could take care of her and wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She has come a long way from that scared abused dog on death row. She has been on countless picnics, beach vacations, and road trips, but now she can add TV star to her many achievements.
- @BrandoCash