I stopped creating stories about Bear because he grew up and his antics settled into a pattern for the most part. Fast forward a bit and he became more couch potato than crazy, fun, creative Bear. Then he started gaining weight. A LOT of weight. about 20 pounds over a year to 90 pounds. I had reduced the amount I was feeding him to only slightly more than Tramp ate at 18 pounds of fearless pup. Needless to say we had a problem. After a quick check at the vet we discovered a thyroid problem.
Thyroid issues are somewhat less fun in dogs than humans because they can’t say “I feel off today” so what comes out in dog speak is growling or snapping. Yes, a grumpy 90 pound dog snarling at previous unimportant things does make life interesting in hurry. The good news is he has responded well to the medication and prescription food has helped with the weight, at last check he was back to 70 pounds of crazy fluff and just 3 pounds away from his goal weight.
A couple of his cohorts, Lady and Tramp, have decided to show their age.
Lady is going blind and tore her ACL on a back leg. The mystery still remains on how exactly the Diva and resident princess did anything strenuous enough to tear her ACL. She is grumpy about the whole thing and when she expresses this frustration it sounds like a mini-wookie. So cute and so the wrong time to laugh. She’s turned out to be a pretty tough cookie. At this point I am pretty sure she will out live all of us.
Tramp has been diagnosed with Cushings. He has had some other general health problems most of his life so he’s been a pretty miserable pup. He is responding to treatment but very, very slowly. We are trying to find the balance, we’ve doubled his medication which helps quite a bit with his blood work numbers but that amount of medication in that little body triggers side-effects that make him a tired, miserable boy. If I back him off to the original dose, his Cushings symptoms come back. The balance is there somewhere.
So why am I posting?
Well, I’ve often thought about picking up this blog again. I enjoyed writing it and I think people enjoyed it. It’s just things aren’t quite so fun now so the tone of the blog will change. I still have to decide if I will continue in the stories format or more along posts. Maybe a mix of the two.
More to come…