We lost our beloved Bear boy last week [View all]

Bear was our biggest Great Pyrenees, that we had for 7 years. We adopted him from an older gentleman when he was five. Bear had belonged to his wife, who had passed away. When we walked up to the house, we heard this huge--WOOF!--and then the biggest dog we'd ever seen in our lives popped out. Gorgeous, wagging his tail. I said, this guy's going home with us.

We spent the past couple months going to a dermatology specialist in Louisville, after our regular vet was stumped. It started on his face, ears, then going everywhere, losing his hair in this nasty crusty scales. He was diagnosed with ischemic dermatopathy. Lots of tests, lots of money. "Ninety percent sure its an autoimmune disease." We can fix that. But, we're still going to send samples off to the lab to be sure. So, we waited. And we waited. More and more drugs going into the boy.

He'd already had surgery on both knees/stifles to replace worn out ligaments. We thought one of those must have failed, because he also started to not be able to get up on his own. It took both of us to hoist him up. His eyes were very sad.....

The vet finally called last week, and said--well, golly gee--its cancer after all. Bring him back in, and we will get you to the oncologist, start him on chemo, different drugs, yada yada yada.

No way we were going to put him through that as well. Last Wednesday, we took him to our regular, very kind, vet to let him pass gently in my arms.

We had already lost his sister, Chloe, earlier this year to another strange disease. We just miss them so damn much! We have one Pyr left now, Duke.

Thanks for listening, my friends.



Bear on the right, and Duke, playing by the pond


Gardening Bear


Duke and Bear


Bear, Chloe, and Duke


My very favorite, Xmas Bear