Moving forward here at BellenPaws.com is something we chose to do in 2025. It feels somewhat weird moving on with the website when both Belle has crossed the rainbow bridge and Paws has also crossed over. We miss them so much it brings tears just thinking about the two of them. They gave us so much love and we like to think they felt the love we gave them back.
Remembering Belle, Paws and Sophie
When we received Belle and Paws, if its as though they knew they were headed to the ASPCA and also knew they had been rescued by us. They were both a fountain of love for us. In fact, so much so that we decided on a mantra for the website “Senior pets still have love to give”.
Belle and Paws were both senior cats when we got them at twelve years old and they continued to live with us for a further eight years for Paws and just under nine years for Belle. That would make them 20 years for Paws when he passed and Belle was 20 and 1/2 years when she passed.
They were incredible cats we will always love and miss them. There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t think of them and remember the fun times and moments we all shared. They were well loved and they will ALWAYS hold a place in our hearts.
It was not an easy decision to continue with our website. We’ve felt the grief of first losing Paws and then losing Belle for quite a while. Being able to go online and blog about them was (and is) heart wrenching. To complicate matters even more, we lost our senior dog Sophie in 2024 as well.
Sophie was a white Maltese but if you didn’t know better you’d swear this little spitfire was a Pitbull. She was FULL of energy and didn’t take crap from anyone. She was very much loved and will be missed immensely. 2024 was not a good year for us here.
More Drafts In the Website
The first thing to note is that we already have a huge amount of drafts on the website that haven’t been made live yet. We like to include photos and clean up the writing before posting. Not having the time to do so really couldn’t be helped because running a multi-pet household is time consuming enough along with trying to maintain a life of our own.
We also try to work in other web projects while maintaining a “Senior Pet Website” is reason enough but once you mix in the grief of losing your loved pets, it becomes particularly hard to do it all. This means Belle and Paws truly haven’t gone. We have lots of issues to talk about and articles to share that star our namesake seniors. Keep your eyes peeled.
More Pets
It’s never been a secret that we’ve always been a multi-pet household. We have multiple cats and dogs and always have. Every one of our pets is a rescue. At one point they were all senior pets here in our household but at this particular time we only have three senior pets. They are named Jack who is fourteen and Bella who is now eleven.
We have two more cats named Everly and Bentley. Everly is six years old and Bentley is about nine. As these pets are all rescues, you can never be sure what their actual birthday is because you only know what you’re told when you get them. Instead of birthdays we have “Gotcha” days.
Jack has a few health issues but nothing that keeps him from enjoying a healthy and fun life. Bella is also very lively and has absolutely no health issues at all. This is something she shares with our cat Everly as she has no health issues at all either. Neither of them is on medication for anything. Bentley has been diagnosed with Feline Diabetes.
Feline Diabetes is something we know all too well because a previous cat of ours Zipper (Zippy) also had Feline Diabetes. The good news is that we were able to overcome Zipper’s condition and he went into full remission for the disease.
Something we didn’t think was possible until we did our research on Feline Diabetes. We are hoping the same for Bentley but as of today he is still is being tested for glucose levels and receiving his insulin shots as needed.
Why BellenPaws.com?
We are Web Developers by trade. We have a few web projects and still another few we’re trying to get going. The BellenPaws.com website was a side project we did as a celebration of getting both Belle and Paws. They immediately brought happiness and love into our household. We decided to create a website encouraging others to rescue senior pets.
We originally created the website because the original owners of Belle and Paws expressed interest in keeping track of them and wanting to know how they were doing. As web developers, we thought a website would be an easy way for them to keep themselves updated. However, even with our contact information, we never heard from them again and they never visited the website.
As web developers, we can see whether visitors actually visit and no one besides us came. This was before we started growing as a website and all we had were pictures of Belle and Paws with short articles so it would have been easy to see visitors if there were any… and there wasn’t.
While not always the case, many people go into shelters and pick out the pets they think will be around for a while ignoring the elder pets because of fear of health issues or dealing with a pet that requires significantly more care than just dropping a food bowl down and cleaning a litter box. We’re not those kinds of owners and have never been. Our experience is that many health issues are very manageable and a little extra effort for the love you receive is always worth it.
Some Web Tools
As web developers, we’ve created some tools for our website. The first two tools came from the many questions we’ve received regarding “What is a senior pet?” and “is my pet a senior”? It seemed to us that creating senior pet age calculators for a website was relatively simple task that allowed anyone to check the age of their pet and see if they’re a senior pet or not. We then came up with the idea of converting that age into human years.
The Senior Cat Age Calculator was created first. Calculating whether a cat is a senior pet or not is relatively easy. If your cat is 11 years or older then they are a senior. However converting the number entered into human years is a bit more complicated and we went by universally recognized methods and common sense. Our methods and reasoning are described on the Senior Cat Age Calculator page.
The Senior Dog Calculator was our second endeavor. Calculating if a dog is a senior has the added complication of a dog’s size. Smaller dogs tend to live longer that larger dogs so size has to be taken into account for senior determination and then again for conversion into human years. Again, or method and reasoning are described on the Senior Dog Age Calculator Page.
Our third tool “Pet Diabetes Tracker” came from necessity. Bentley was diagnosed with Feline Diabetes and we needed to track his glucose levels to make sure his Diabetes was being managed correctly. When we had zippy we just created a spreadsheet using excel and we also had one on Google Sheets inputting our format and formulas as needed. This worked fine for a little while when we had Zippy. However, we then decided we wanted to to do this on our phone and the idea of developing a web application for the website became a thing.
The Cat Diabetes Tracker
The Pet Diabetes Tracker tool allows you to add your pet’s name or multiple cats if you have them (or maybe you’re an institution managing several cats with Feline Diabetes). You can add multiple entries at a time if you’re adding glucose readings historically (for the week or month etc.).
You are given a reading in real time and then the website will chart the readings for you based on the time period you choose (30, 60, 90, or all the readings). You can then print the chart if needed for a physical copy to bring to your veterinarian. The page also has the entire table of readings that you’ve entered for your cat based on the time period selected and in chronological order. You can also print the entire displayed table for a physical copy to bring to your veterinarian as well.
The cat Diabetes Tool is something we’ve already been using ourselves. We use the form to keep track of Bentley’s glucose readings and we’ve tested the form in many different scenarios so that it’s responsive across many devices. It can be used easily on a desktop, tablet or phone as long as you are logged into our website on the device.
We then decided that this could be a useful tool for anyone that wanted to keep track of their cat’s glucose readings over a period of time and could help in the management of their cat’s diabetes in conjunction with their veterinary care. We decided to make the tool available for anyone who had a use for it. Any person need to to create an account here at BellenPaws.com for access to Cat Diabetes Tracker tool. Once you create an account you can start using the tool immediately.
Moving Forward
We will be adding new posts that are actually drafts that are already in our system. We have thousands of pictures of our pets and coordinating them with our articles is going to be a little time consuming. We plan to add some functionality to the website so that anyone wishing to print a blank form for glucose reading tracking manually can do so. This will allow you to have a physical copy of the readings. Not everyone can enter the glucose readings into the website tracker at the time when they test their pet. You’re not thinking of it and you’re more concerned with getting the reading and
We’ve added a section for notes in case you wanted to add something like “Gave Bentley an insulin shot at this time” or “no shot needed”. Our online form allows for historical readings so you can add readings from the past. You can also add several readings at once, so having a physical printed blank form may come in handy to keep track of your readings before entering them for averages and charting.
One of the things we’ll also be adding is a blank form for creating a glucose curve. This is a record of glucose readings across several hours. Veterinarians do this so they can determine what your cat’s insulin dosage should be and when shots should be given.
Finally, for people who find it easier to keep track of their cat’s diabetes through an Excel spreadsheet, We’ll be sharing our spreadsheet that we originally used for our first Diabetic cat Zippy. Before we had the web application,, we were keeping track of Zippy’s glucose readings, averages and insulin shots via an Excel spreadsheet. While this worked fine for us back then, it can be cleaned up for better usage and we plan to make it available for others who find a spreadsheet more comfortable for them to manage their cat’s Feline Diabetes.
Still A Senior Pets Website
First and foremost, we will always consider ourselves a Senior Pets website. We still have senior pets and we always will. Even our youngest will eventually be a senior someday and all of our pets are considered family. So expect more from Everly. We still have many stories to tell about Belle and Paws and their conditions. It is our hope that people will learn from our own experience dealing with Senior Pets with stories, remedies and our own solutions dealing with pets as they go through their senior years.
