"General Beauregard's Southern Belle" was her AKC name; but we called her "Belle". Belle was born on September 28, 1997. Angie bought Belle as a birthday present to Johnnie (his birthday is October 19th). Belle's mother belonged to a couple from Fuquay-Varina named Brett and Cheryl Williams. Cheryl gave Angie a photograph of the mother dog with all of the puppies. EVERY puppy in the litter was chocolate. We had 3rd pick of the litter. Angie put that photograph of the puppies in Johnnie's birthday card that year. That was how he found out that he was the proud new owner of our SECOND chocolate labrador Retriever. You see we already had one dog---a male chocolate Labrador Retriever named Bud He was 2 years old. His AKC name was "General Beauregard". That's how we named Belle-----Belle was "General Beauregard's Southern Belle".
After Johnnie's birthday on October 19th, we went over to Brett and Cheryl's house to actually "choose" which puppy we wanted. They were almost 4 weeks old the day we went to pick her out. Johnnie looked all of them over and made his decision. He says that the reason that he chose Belle was because she was the most playful----she came over and tried to untie his shoestrings with her teeth!!
Belle came home to meet her older brother Bud on Friday, November 28, 1997. She was 8 weeks old. I remember the evening that we picked her up from Brett and Cheryl's home. They made us wait until she was 8 weeks old before we brought her home; so they had spent quite a bit of time with her. They told us that they thought that we had picked the BEST puppy out of the entire litter. That even though we had 3rd pick---they felt like she was the BEST one. We have always felt that way about Belle. We could have never picked a better dog.
Belle was the sweetest dog. She was so humble and she was the most obedient dog that I have ever known. She became Angie's dog (even though she was Johnnie's birthday present). She became Angie's "shadow". She followed Angie wherever she went in the house. She would lie on the bath rug outside the shower door and wait while Angie was in the shower. Wherever Angie was---Belle was right there with her!
Belle was diagnosed with lesions on her brain after having several seizures on May 31, 2010. She went home to Heaven on July 9, 2010. We will always love her and we miss her terribly; but we know that she is at the Rainbow Bridge running and playing with Bud!
Angie & Johnnie Norris