There's a greyhound station where I've sent my thoughts to far off destinations so they may have a chance of finding a place where they're far more suited than here. Where soul meets body.
Tarra, a 35-year-old Asian elephant, surprised every elephant and human at the sanctuary with the choice of her new best friend—a rescued guard dog named Bella. “Tarra is the one who likes to be different,” Carol says. “I think it was Tarra searching out Bella and Bella finding that she could get all of her emotional needs met through this elephant.”
The unlikely pair is inseparable. “When it’s time to eat, they both eat together. They drink together. They sleep together. They play together,” Carol says.
Tarra and Bella’s friendship was tested when Bella suffered a back injury. Unable to walk, Bella was confined inside the sanctuary’s office. Tarra left her 1,800-acre habitat behind and visited her friend every day for three weeks.In a moment that became a YouTube sensation, co-founder Scott Blais carried Bella onto the balcony to see her devoted friend. “Bella’s tail started wagging, and we had no choice but to bring Bella down to see Tarra,” he says.
Today, Bella’s back on her feet and happily joined at the hip with Tarra. “Bella knows that she’s not an elephant, and Tarra knows that she’s not a dog,” Scott says. “But it’s just a relationship that goes across those boundaries. It exceeds all those. It’s just a true friendship.”
Still, the path to friendship wasn’t always so smooth—Carol says the other elephants initially threw sticks and kicked dirt at Bella. “Bella would just stand her ground and then she’d go over and sit down right next to Tarra, maybe lean on Tarra’s leg like: ‘I’m here. I’m here to stay,’” Carol says.
No matter what, Bella harbors no hard feelings. “Now that Bella’s part of Tarra’s little herd and Tarra’s clique, Bella will often protect the other elephants also,” Scott says.
