"Faithful, Loyal, Dependable, Trustworthy, A Friend To The End"

PECKHAM'S HEART OF A BEAR (AKA: BEAR) 2007-2015

"Bear had a massive tumor in his stomach.  It was so big that his stomach looked like a very pregnant female dog with about eighteen pups inside.  He had not been doing all that great for quite a while.  This winter was hard on him, esp. Dec. and Jan.  He was loosing tons of weight, had no energy, and just could not handle the cold.  I (Sharon) spent most of Jan. trying to convince him to eat more.  At first I tried to convince myself that he was just a love-sick puppy dog.  However, this proved to not be the case.  It was around this time that I noticed that he had lost several inches in height.  I kept picking up the phone to call the vet to make a apt. for him, and then emergencies like replacing the water heater (again), or trying to convince the propane company to give us more propane, or a whole slew of other emergencies kept coming up.  By last Friday, Bear had stopped eating all together.  So on the following Monday I just took him in to the vet.  His urine was also completely bloody as were the stools (what few he had).  He could barely walk and was having difficulty breathing at times.  At first I tried to convince myself that the color in his urine was really just the food coloring of his dog food, but it became very obvious that this was not the case.  He also had immense amounts of pain when I even lightly brushed the hairs on his stomach.  The vet said that the tumor was huge and that it was jamming his internal organs up against his backbone and causing UTI's and the beginning of internal bleeding.  She also said that the tumor worked its way into his lungs, backbone, and legs.  She said that even if I would have brought him in sooner there would have been nothing that they could do.  She said that with tumors like this they always hit very hard and fast. One day your dog is fine and a month latter he has aged 5 years.  She also said that there is no cure of any kind for it even if they catch it at the very beginning.  She said that the only difference would have been that I would have been given a longer prognosis than a day or two.  She said to take him home, prepare the family, and say goodbye.  This is what we did.  By the time I brought him in 24 hrs. latter, he had aged ten years, was in massive amounts of pain, and I was having to work very hard to convince him to drink just a few droplets of water.  We had the vet put him to sleep and he is no longer in pain, but my heart is still braking.  I thank God for all of the wonderful memories that he gave us with Bear." ~ Sharon Peckham