Photo c/o Gisselle Madrigal
Bella is a five-year-old chocolate lab-whippet mix who has been working at Tampa's Blount and Curry at Garden of Memories since October 2022.
“She is great because no one wants to walk into a building like this, right?” Kaylee Wilson, the general manager of Blount and Curry at Garden of Memories, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “People can’t breathe … and it’s the worst day of their life. They have a seat in the lobby waiting for their appointment, and she’ll walk over and sit down next to them and they’ll start petting her and they can just breathe again.”
Bella is a five-year-old chocolate lab-whippet mix who has been working at the funeral since October 2022 when Wilson and her family moved back to the area. Wilson has been with the home’s parent company for a decade, working at locations in Oklahoma City, Austin and now Tampa.
Bella was supposed to be a family pet, Wilson said, after her adoption from the Humane Society in Oklahoma City. But “she just had the sweetest disposition.”
When Bella was around two-and-a-half, the Wilson family was in Austin and began the AKC Canine Good Citizen training and then a couple more courses through the Humane Society.
“She is a certified good girl,” Wilson said.
With the funeral home laying to rest about 1,200 people a year in the cemetery and hosting around 600 families for services, Bella has daily opportunities to impact many lives. She even gets special requests to be at certain functions like visitations.
Wilson remembers a service where a woman needed to step out after having trouble in such a large crowd of people.
“Bella went and sat next to her and was just there with her,” she said. “She’s just a calming presence.”
The death of a loved one is full of scary changes, especially for children. Funeral services can be overwhelming and are often a child’s first experience with loss. But Bella knows just what to do to help.
“That’s really hard to lose a grandparent or a parent. It’s scary,” Wilson said. “She’ll go and will just sit with them for hours if that’s what they need because being alone in a room full of adults when you’ve lost your person is very, very difficult.”
“She kind of just knows when and where she’s needed. She’s very intuitive for a little dog,” Wilson added.
Bella’s comforting presence has also made a lasting impression on the staff of Blount and Curry. The business of death is a heavy load to carry every day, but Wilson said Bella is a bright spot in her and every team member’s day.
“My employees will seek her out throughout the day…for pets or a couple of treats,” she said. “She knows who keeps the cheese in their lunchbox. And she has a very special and unique relationship with each and every one of them.”
No one eats lunch alone at Blount and Curry, Wilson said, and they always have the happiest employees even during Monday morning meetings. Bella also recognizes how important her job is and takes both working and relaxing very seriously.
“She is ready to work and knows that that’s what she’s here for,” Wilson said. “And after a long day, she can be found on the foot of the bed in front of her fan.”
When she’s not making her rounds in the office lending a comforting paw during funeral services, Bella will roam the cemetery grounds or join Wilson on trips to flower shops. She likes to greet families visiting loved ones’ resting places on birthdays and holidays and be a familiar face when headstones are unveiled.
“She likes to watch the heavy equipment in the cemetery,” Wilson said. “She’ll lay down in the grass and watch them dig. She keeps a safe distance but… she’s a great supervisor.”
Having a therapy dog seems like an obvious element for a funeral home. But Wilson believes it’s not widespread because of an industry that’s slow to make changes to historic traditions.
“A lot of these services and funerals that you see haven’t really evolved much up until about 10 years ago,” she said. “We have gone more toward celebrations of who someone was and not the rigid structure of service.”
Dogs like Bella are a big part of the efforts to bring as much peace and normalcy to people experiencing stress and upheaval. There’s much emphasis on the “home” in funeral home as well as family—and Bella is an integral part of the Blount and Curry family.
“I think that for her, it’s definitely the excitement of being alive and being able to, you know, be her happiest self,” Wilson said. “And she has never met someone who was not a friend.”
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