Remembering Belle: Wedding Belle, originally uploaded by pmarkham.

My wife and I got married at a park shelter at Parker’s Lake in Plymouth, MN. Since Belle was such a big part of lives, she was part of our wedding party — she even had her own little hat. A few minutes before the wedding was supposed to start, she snuck out the back door of the shelter and went swimming in the lake. When we realized she was gone, we called her name and she quickly came right back — and proceeded to shake off her wet body all over us and our guests! Someone snapped this picture a few minutes later, just before the wedding was supposed to start. She was still soaking wet and she looked rather proud of herself.

Belle was our Labrador/Sheltie mix. My wife adopted her from the Animal Humane Society in 1993 when she was just nine weeks old. She lived 16 years and seven months — an amazingly long time for a dog her size. She died on October 24, 2009, surrounded by her family and our other animals.