This is my moms dog bear. She got him and 2 other dogs from her aunt who is a dog breeder after she had lost her other dog due to a tragic fire. Bear though, he was special, he was very very ill when my mom decided to take him. Almost lifeless. My mom nursed him back to health, but that wasn't the last time he'd get sick. This cute little guy when through a lot of battles of being almost completely lifeless, no vet was fully sure as to what was wrong. Until one day my mom had brought him along when she was coming to visit me, and he was so near death that I told her she HAD to take him to the animal hospital, that she couldn't just give up on him. I even helped her pay the $2000+ vet bill for his stay there for the weekend. It was discovered that he has hypodipsia which occurs in Miniature Schnauzers. Which is what he was. Hypodipsia is the inability to know to drink water. The sensory in the brain does not signal when the dog needs to drink, the dog is not aware that it needs to drink or that its thirsty so it doesn't drink at all. This causes the dog to get very very dehydrated and if not looked after right can cause death. So for bear, he has to live on wet food mixed with water to be able to live stable. This was the reason he had gotten sick so many times. And because its so rare many vets don't realize or even know what it is. I learned about it in college, as I went for veterinary assistant, my teacher was a full time vet so she is aware of it. But since this dog had been sick so many times, we believe it may have caused some damage in his brain, but nothing too severe. He was just a little bit dopey at times. And when this dog was healthy you'd never guess that he'd ever been sick because he was so full of life. This dog was very inspiring to my mom and to myself. Because he taught us, no matter what life throws at us, to just live it up and be happy, live as if nothing was ever wrong. This boy was soo full of energy all the time he just made us laugh a lot. Though he would walk into things sometimes. But we loved him.
Although my mom was able to extend his life a few years longer, sadly he passed away a week and a few days ago. He was having seizures and just so stiff and lifeless, he fought so many battles, and this one he wasn't looking like he could win. He was a trooper, and it was so hard for my mom to let him go, but she knew what the right choice was. She had to say goodbye to her sunshine, the one dog that taught her so much about life in just a short time. It breaks my heart that my mom has to lose another dog again. He was such a happy full of life dog when he was healthy. He will be greatly loved and always missed. Luckily we were blessed with a lovely puppy that he was a proud father of.
RIP Bear, you are greatly and truly missed<3 xoxo
