Pooh Bear is my 4 year old Australian Shepherd mix boy who I adopted in April of 2005 when he was 14 months old. The poor little guy had already been in about 6 homes in his short life. He was adopted out twice and returned. One guy supposedly lost his job and couldn't afford to have a dog, and then he was adopted by a woman and her granddaughter. After they had him a while, the granddaughter decided she wanted a lap dog! And he was in about 4 foster homes.
I saw his picture on Petfinder.com three different times before I decided that he HAD to join my family.
The first time I saw Pooh Bear on Petfinder he was a little puppy. He was the first one of the litter to be adopted because he was the cutest. Here's his puppy picture. Doesn't this pic just make you melt?
Then I saw him again about six months later and noticed how much he looks like Jackie, my big black and tan girl. I just loved him, but didn't think I was ready for 3 dogs.
The third time he showed up on Petfinder, I figured it was fate, and he was meant to be with me.
Here's a picture of the first time Jackie, Maya and I met Pooh Bear at his foster home. He got along great with the girls from the start (and was licking their ears and giving kisses), and he jumped up on the bench I was sitting on and cuddled up with me.
I went back the next day to pick him up, and when he saw me, he started leaping up in the air and couldn't wait to come with me!
The day he came home with me he started limping, and when I took him to the vet he discovered that he had hip dysplasia. So he had FHO surgery a month after I adopted him (where they remove the ball from the hip socket, and the muscles and tendons form a false joint).
He made a complete recovery from his hip surgery, and he can run faster than the girls!
After he ate most of my furniture, I realized that he wasn't just being a puppy; he had destructive separation anxiety. So now he's in a crate when I'm gone. And he goes in his crate and waits for me to give him his peanut butter Kong. Now his only "thing" is that he's obsessed with the squirrels in my back yard.
Last year Pooh Bear had Xylitol poisoning from eating a pack of sugarless gum that he got off of the kitchen table and he spent the night at the emergency vet on IV fluids and the next day at my vet on IV fluids. Then a few months ago he had an irritated eye, and it turned out that he had bilateral corneral degeneration and bilateral superficial corneal ulcers (in both eyes). They treated both eyes with grid keratotomies (basically scraping the ulcers) to help stimulate healing, and he had to be a conehead for over a week while I put ointment in both eyes 3 times a day. The ulcers have completely healed up, and we're working on the degeneration.
Look at how much he looks like Jackie!  Here he is cuddling with big sister Maya  I know that if I hadn't adopted Pooh Bear that he would have gone through many more homes because of his health issues and because of his destructive separation anxiety. But I just absolutely love him, and giving him a happy forever home is more important to me than some chewed up furniture. He has brought a lot of joy into my life and it seems like he's been with Jackie and Maya forever!
Peg (the other one) |
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