| “ | No matter how many kilometers away. I’ll always find my way home. | „ |
| ~ Bella. |
| “ | I was really home with Lucas, and Olivia, too. I was where I needed to be. And Big Kitten was where she needed to be. I finally understood that the invisible leash that led me to Lucas was made of love. He was my person. And I was his dog. | „ |
| ~ Bella's epilogue. |
Bella is the main protagonist in the 2019 movie A Dog’s Way Home, based on the novel of the same name. She is a dog who lived her childhood with cats until the days when she was adopted by human named Lucas. When she is separated from Lucas, Bella begins a long journey across the united states to find her human while living many meetings and experience she had never known before.
She was voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard, who also played Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3, Claire Dearing in the Jurassic World franchise and Grace Meacham in Pete's Dragon.
Personality[]
Like all dogs, Bella loves playing as she also loves snow and squirrel hunting. She never realizes how people can know her name from her medal or even understand people's attentions. She has a fairly easy understanding of some human, easily knowing who is nice and mean or even very sad. She also has a lot of kindness in her heart, as when she took care of Big Kitten who had just lost her mother by keeping her warm at night and feeding her the best she could like Mother Cat did it for her. Her determination is above all her greatest quality given that she traveled for two years to find home.
She are usually easily approached by humans, showing no hostility when Axel prevents her from continuing her journey or prevent her from playing with other dogs or when Chuck tries to force her away, despite her contempt for this human. However, she does not hesitate to fight against the coyotes twice.
History[]
Born in Denver under a heap of ruin with her siblings, Bella grew up surrounded by cats and her family until the day when abusive animal officer Chuck and land owner Gunther came to clear the area of stray animals. After her siblings were taken away, Bella was taken to safety by an adult cat while the humans took her mother away. Deprived of her family, Bella was greeted by the adult cat and came to see her as a mother, calling her "Mother Cat".
A few months later, Lucas and Olivia, two young humans preoccupied with cats living under the ruins passed by and when Bella saw Lucas sympathetically feeding the cats, she couldn't help but run towards him. Initially reluctant but eventually convinced by Olivia, Lucas then adopted Bella.
Although Lucas' mother, Terri had nothing against it, Bella's presence remained hidden from the owner of the house. During her early childhood, Bella used to snuggle up against a blanket infused with Lucas' scent while Lucas was at work and often ask for a little piece of cheese. As adults, when Bella and Terri come home from a walk, they are approached by Gunter who wants Lucas to stop coming to his property. Terri refused and Gunter claims that she just went to war with him.
When a visit from the owner of the house is announced, Terri and Lucas take Bella to the VA hospital for the day because if she is discovered, it will result in their eviction. Hidden in the broom closet, Bella is so bored that she barks for Lucas to come but it also attracts the attention of Olivia and Theo, a friendly veteran who finds a solution to Bella's unauthorized presence in the room. Bella quickly becomes very popular with the veterans, even helping them smile again.
Later, in revenge for the withdrawal of his building permit due to the interference of Lucas and Olivia, Gunter talk about Bella to Chuck who threatens to take Bella away, whom he foolishly believes to be a pitbull if he catch her out of the house. Despite getting trained to come home on her own, Bella ends up being captured by the pound after refusing to leave Lucas all alone against Chuck and his colleagues. Lucas gets her released but learns that if Bella is captured again she will be euthanized so he decides to send her to live with Olivia's aunt and uncle in Farmington for a while until a solution is found.
Despite the kindness and comfort she receives there, Bella can't help but think of Lucas all the time and begins to doubt that she will see him again if she stays here, not knowing that he will soon come looking for it. One day Bella ends up believing it's that old-fashioned coming home, meaning to her that living with Lucas is her life, so she runs away using a garden slide to get over the fence starting her way to find Lucas.
After spending her first night in the forest and crossing paths with a fox and a rabbit, Bella stops in Durango where she befriends a trio of dogs and then ration her food with them. In the evening, Bella notices that the three dogs also have owners, making her miss Lucas more and pushing her to resume her journey.
Sometime later, Bella walks through another forest before being surprised by the sound of a gunshot. Following the noise, she falls on the body of a dead cougar before hiding from the hunters who have shot the feline. As she observes the two humans, she notices a small female feline meowing sadly at the deceased cougar. When the cub starts to follow her, Bella realizes that it is both a child and that the dead cougar was her mother. Seeing a little bit of herself in the baby cougar, Bella decides to stay with the little feline she nicknames "Big Kitten".
After a few weeks, Bella and a teenage Big Kitten walk along the river before being suddenly chased by coyotes. As the cougar takes refuge in a tree, Bella stands up to the coyotes until hikers scare them off. Big Kitten runs away, but Bella hopes the humans will feed her. After dark, one of the hikers attempts to call Lucas after the number on Bella's medal but only gets the answering machine before Big Kitten accidentally scares the humans. Bella then leaves the camp with salmon, leaving her medal behind.
When winter falls, Bella and Big Kitten go for a walk in the snow, stop at the frozen pond, and playfully slide across the ice. The next day, Bella hears a dog barking and goes to join him, only to arrive after the owner has been buried. She starts digging with the dog whose name is Dutch as well as a couple of men who skied. Once the man is evacuated by the emergency services, the two men take the two dogs with them, despite Bella refusing to leave Big Kitten on her own. The two animals share a final glance of sadness before being separated.
Bella lives with the two humans for a while, even becoming close to Dutch, but Lucas still misses her. After the original Dutch owner is selfishly refused to take over Dutch, Bella realizes that Dutch is in her place and this prompts her to resume her journey after a walk in the woods where she leaves the couple permanently.
A few days of walking later, Bella arrives in a small town and steals chicken from a convenience store. As she tastes her booty, a somewhat deranged homeless once veteran named Axel offers her some water before taking her against her will with him. Tied to a rope by the human, Bella spends the next few days with Axel without even being able to play with the other dogs because Axel does not understand anything at all. Shortly after winter, Bella begins to chew on the rope, an effort ultimately futile when an increasingly desperate Axel replaces the rope with a chain. The homeless eventually died, leaving Bella unable to eat or drink because of Axel's heavy body hanging on the chain. Bella is fortunately rescued by two kids who pull the chain from her neck before she dies of thirst.
Free again, Bella continues her journey but is not sure she will ever be able to see Lucas again. She then finds herself running away from her old enemies the coyotes to end up in a dead end and forced to fight for her life. Surpassed, Bella is saved at the last minute by the now adult Big Kitten. After the coyotes are defeated, Bella happily reunites with her adopted daughter. The next day, Big Kitten leads Bella up a hill overlooking Denver. Sensing that she is finally getting closer to Lucas, Bella is reluctant to go back and once again leave Big Kitten alone but ends up accepting that her adopted daughter is in her place and the two animals share a tender goodbye before the dog leaves for the city.
On the way, Bella crosses a road and gets hit by a car, injuring her right paw at the same time. Now lame, Bella walks around Denver to Lucas' house but upon entering she does not find Luca or Terri or even anything similar to before, the house now belonging to a woman. Believing she had come all this way for nothing, Bella lay down on the floor in depression until she heard a meow belonging to none other than Mother Cat. The sweet reunion is cut short when Chuck walks into the house, prompting Bella to run away after exchanging one last look with her adoptive mother.
Not losing hope, Bella then goes to the last place Lucas can be, the VA hospital. There, she discovers that other dogs have been present since she was the only one. After reuniting with her old veteran friends, Bella finally spots Lucas and runs towards him, resulting in a touching reunion with Terri and Olivia. While being taken to the vet due to her injury, Bella is called out by a stubborn Chuck and his colleagues but no one wants to yield the injured dog to him, despite the warnings from Captain Mica who only obeys to the law. Lucas stops Chuck's threat, however, by revealing that since the hospital is federally owned, Denver politics don't have to. Mica then removes Chuck from the service due to the number of complaints against him.
In the evening, Bella moved into the house of Lucas now married to Olivia and found her old favorite game of the piece of cheese. When everyone is asleep, Bella looks at the moon and is happy that she managed to find Lucas, that Big Kitten was happy in the forest and that what pulled her towards Lucas was mostly love.
Gallery[]
Quotes[]
| “ | It's simple at first. Home is the only place you know. And everyone there is your family. My first home was full of cats. And I'm a dog. Cats had sharp claws and made a funny tummy sound when they were happy. The kittens had a mother cat. And I had a mother dog. I couldn't imagine that life could get any better. As I grew, we made a home together. We were happy for a while. | „ |
| ~ Bella recounting her childhood. |
| “ | A pack. Maybe I shouldn't bother them. But I'm so hungry. One Tooth is big. To be polite, I'll carefully sniff where the other dogs have marked. What? Oh, Crazy Hair is in charge. Thanks. | „ |
| ~ Bella meets the Dog pack. |
| “ | Now, I knew that to hunt I needed to go where there were people and do what One Tooth taught me. | „ |
| ~ Bella in the forest. |
| “ | I smelled blood. It was the largest animal I had ever seen. And something very bad had happened to her. | „ |
| ~ Bella find the death cougar. |
| “ | What is that? It kind of looks like a cat. I hoped the cat would leave with me and not get caught by those bad men. That cat didn't smell like any cat I ever knew. Was it following me? Yep, it was following me. And suddenly, I realized it wasn't a full-grown cat. It was still just a kitten. A really big kitten. Come on, Big Kitten. This way. That big animal must have been this kitten's mother. Big Kitten made me think of Mother Dog and how sad I was when she was taken away. She needed someone to take care of her. Big Kitten's mother couldn't feed her anymore, so, I did. I was Big Kitten's Mother Cat now. | „ |
| ~ Bella meets Big Kitten. |
| “ | I knew now that my journey was much longer than I'd ever imagined. Two winters. How many more winters would there be? And how many more could I take? | „ |
| ~ Bella after resuming her trip. |
| “ | Big Kitten wanted me to follow her, and I wanted her to follow me. I knew then that Big Kitten would not be coming home with me to sleep on the bed. I will always be your mother cat. I loved Big Kitten. But I knew I would never see her again. | „ |
| ~ Bella bidding farewell to Big Kitten. |
| “ | Mother Cat watched me leave, just like Big Kitten did. I guess that's how cats say goodbye. | „ |
| ~ Bella seeing Mother Cat for the last time. |
| “ | Lucas! Olivia! Mom! I did Go Home! | „ |
| ~ Bella finally reunited with her family. |
| “ | I was really home with Lucas, and Olivia, too. I was where I needed to be. And Big Kitten was where she needed to be. I finally understood that the invisible leash that led me to Lucas was made of love. He was my person. And I was his dog. | „ |
| ~ Bella's epilogue. |
Trivia[]
- She has a preference for chicken.
- Although predominantly played by a real dog, Bella is portrayed in CGI on some scenes.