Bella was taken care of by a breeder in New Zealand who kept her in horrible conditions and didn’t care for her at all. She finally got away from the breeder and found a home, but she didn’t get along with her new family’s dog, so she had to be given up to Husky Rescue NZ.
When Bella first got to the rescue, she was scared to death of everyone there. She had been treated so badly by people for the first few years of her life that she didn’t trust them at all.
Her new friends at the rescue knew it would take her a while to learn to trust again. It looked like she would have a long time getting better, but then she met Simon Evans, who would become her new dad.
Evans started helping out at the husky rescue sometimes after work. He helped get all the very active dogs out for a walk. He first got close to a dog named Noct.
Noct came from the same breeder as Bella and was chained to a shed for the first seven years of his life. Evans eventually got Noct to like him, even though he was very shy at first. Evans hoped that he could do the same thing with Bella.
“By the time Bella got to the shelter she was just terrified of everyone (especially men), so much so that when I would show up, she’d run straight into her kennel and just hide at the back,” Evans told The Dodo.”
Evans had been taking Noct for runs to earn his trust, and he decided to do the same thing with Bella. With the help of another volunteer, Evans started taking Bella and Noct for runs often, and Bella’s true personality slowly started to show.
“We would go for runs a few days per week, and before long she turned a corner and started being excited to see us,” Evans said.
Those runs not only helped Bella get closer to Evans, but they also helped her get closer to Noct. Soon, the two Alaskan malamutes were the best of friends. The more they worked together, the further they got, and everyone at the rescue was amazed at how far they’d come since they got there.
Evans had been planning to move away for a while, and he made a deal with the shelter that if Noct had made enough progress by the time he was ready to move, he would adopt him and take him with him. Not only had Noct exceeded Evans’s expectations, but so had Bella, and he knew he couldn’t adopt just one of them.
“Noct used to do these long, sad howls when I would leave after our runs,” Evans said. “Those howls stopped after Bella arrived. By the time I left at the end of that year, leaving either of them behind was not an option.”
Evans made up his mind and decided to officially adopt both Noct and Bella, and he wouldn’t change that decision for anything in the world.
Now, a year and a half later, Evans takes Noct and Bella on runs every single day, and at night, the three friends all sleep in the same bed. Both dogs have changed a lot since the rescue first took them in.
They are now friendly, and trusting, and have a wonderful lack of care. When Evans first started volunteering with the rescue, he didn’t plan to adopt any of the dogs. Now that he has two furry best friends, he can’t imagine his life without them.
“Funny how things work out, really. I hadn’t planned on getting pets at that point in my life but I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Evans said. “They are easily the best part of my day.”
