Maybe? Possibly? Finally?

Bear the Dog - He can't read

You know whom I haven't given enough love to here on the olde blog? Bear the Dog. He's the 110lb lug that protects our home from, uh, unsat upon pillows? After 2+ years with Bear I feel like he's finally coming into his own. A series of medical conditions, allergies, and other canine zaniness have made things frustrating at times, but I love the big dope.

I'll admit, I've had a lot of complaints with Bear. I suppose things got off to a bad start with the now infamous multi-puke, car wreck puppy pick-up event. I should've realized at that point that he'd be scarred for life, but oh well. Here's a abbreviated list of ailments that have beset poor Bear since we've owned him...

• Phantom limping - thought he tore his ACL. Mysteriously disappeared.
• Multiple histiocytomas, particularly in the foot area, resulting in blood all over our floors and Bear refusing to walk.
• Multiple bouts with diarrhea. Required us to feed him a raw diet (boiled chicken and rice) and eventually change his dog food.
• Seasonal Affective Disorder. He would lose clumps of hair and become listless in the winter from lack of sunlight.
• Bleeding ears. To an extent that when he flapped them - something all dogs do - blood splattered the walls and made it look like someone was ax murdered in our family room.
  
• Hair clumping
• Loss of appetite
• Excessive fluid in anal glands
  

I'm sure I'm forgetting some, and this is all in just over a 2-year period... which just happened to coincide with the birth of our first child. So we're probably idiots and should've seen this coming, but who woulda thunked? Thank god for pet insurance. (One thing I did learn throughout all of this is that vets are basically morons. You take your pet in, they scratch their heads, actually try to find pictures of the ailment in a big diagnostic book, then recommend taking blood samples. After all that uncovers nothing - which is usually the case - they simply prescribe antibiotics. My point? If you have a pet there's no point in taking him to the vet except for administration of shots. They're worthless and you're better off self-diagnosing through the internet and taking appropriate action on your own. With pets 99% of issues can be resolved homeopathically.)

Anyway, I think we may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. After much consultation with Bear's breeders, she finally mentioned that several of Bear's relatives have allergies to chicken - which just so happened to be the primary ingredient in the fancy dog food we've been feeding him the past two years. When we read online about some of the symptoms they matched Bear's tit-for-tat. So about 8 weeks back we switched him over to a lamb and rice formula and, slowly but surely, he's been getting better. Honestly, he's like a different dog the past few weeks - one that I don't loath and contemplate talking for a long "walk" regularly. This is what I signed up for. This is what I was expecting, and I'm now enjoying the dog ownership experience.

We aren't out of the clear yet. He still can't poop in under 15minutes (he just keeps trying and trying - he'll probably get hemorroids). He still occasionally pukes from eating sh!t in the yard (although you can see the tell-tale signs here and usually throw him outside beforehand). And he does have a tendency to wake up 20 minutes before me and lick my face because he wants to go running NOW, but these are nothing compared to the past two years.

So here's to you, Bear!

P.S. - If he gets sick again, he's gone...