Janet and Patou, I would like to welcome you two warmly and Im joyfully writing you because I am an absolute, certified Pyr-lover myself. I dont think I could have described my own love for them any better than you beautifully did in your first post. My wife and I have had four in the last 15 yrs. which unfortunately have not been tragedy free. When I first started dating my wife, I went to pick her up and was met by her majestic, yet huggable Samson. Sammy stood between us to greet me, he was all she had and he knew it. But Sammy took to me so quickly that my wife took it as sign; I still owe Sammy so much for giving me a chance with the most beautiful woman in the world! In fact as I came to learn and love the breed even more, I realized my wife's personality and sweetness were correlated with the breed. Pyr-people are a class all their own!

But we have never had any children so these big-babies are all we have. In Aug. of '00 I decided to surprise Jennifer with a new pyr-pup. I secretely saved the money and corresponded with a breeder, but I had to fill her in on my plan as we would have to drive 3 1/2 hours to North Jersey to pick up the bear cub, who became known as Sophie. Sammy was 6 at the time, so Sophie was intended to soften the blow as our amazing bear got older. For the next six years Sammy and Sophie were the subject of hundreds of great photos and the topic of any conversation people had with us. At the end of Dec. '06 Sammy was 12 1/2 and became sick rather unexpectedly, his health precipitated and it took a god-awful, heartbreaking decision at 300 am to bring him back to heaven. The boyo who was with us everyday we ahd been together was gone. The next few months Sophie took over sole gaurdianship of the house, she seemed like she missed her boy too, as it turned out, she was sick as well. Just six months after Sammy, Sophie began getting nose-bleeds which revealed earth-shaking news to us: it was nasal cancer, 100% fatality rate after a year. We did everything we could for our little girl, spent an insane amount of money(and I would do it again), and in July '07 she too was gone, only 7 yrs. old. When you take two giant bears who are giant parts of your life out of your little farm house, it feels like a cavern had just ripped through your life. The house had a terrible echo and we both no longer felt full or right. We didnt know when we would ever be ready again to fill their spots in our lives.

But there is serendipity in life and while we were on vacation in Savannah, Georgia in April '08 we were walking down River Street and right out in front of a restaurant we saw a young handsome Pyr with that sweet, siilly look on his face that all Great Pyrenees proudly express. My wife caught sight of him and made a b-line to this family who was eating outside and began hugging 'Emmit'. Since she was in tears

and oblivious to the people that existed around her I had to converse with them and explain the situation we just went through. But as it goes, if you ever had pyr, you understand how my wife felt and they did. But I thought that Georgia was an odd place to find one of these guys. They're somewhat rare and they don't enjoy the heat too much. Well, the next morning I happened to look in the local paper while getting a cup of coffee and there it was, Great Pyrenees pups 8 wks old! It was the first day that add had run in the paper the breeder said and I just so happened to come across it. So on a whim, in the middle of vacation which also was celebrating our ninth anniversary, we went to go pick out a new pup. I knew the urge to for my wife to pick out only one pup out of eight was going to be too much to overcome, so I put my foot down before hand and insisted that we were only getting one. Incidentally....we left with two! As soon as we entered the back yard of the breeder, one baby, the biggest of the bunch with the head of a cabbage, stood by my wife's side and looked up at her like they had always been friends, and he stayed by her side the rest of the time we sifted through the menacing bunch bears. Since we grabbed the biggest, we also grabbed the smallest, the runt, who to me, also was the cutest. And there it was, our new family and a new beginning. We grappled with finding names for them, but we decided that since this was such a destined circumstance we would have to honor it with names related to Savannah. While we sat pondering their new namesakes, a sax player in front of us palyed Johnny Mercer's "Moon River", and it made me think of the line "my Huckleberry friend". It was perfect, not only was Mercer a Savannah native, but this fat-headed bear just looks like a Huckleberry, and what more pretty and regal name could befit a beautiful Southern girl than "Georgia". We loaded them up and made the 1500 mile trip back home, they slept the entire ride.

That peaceful ride had its price though. That comment you made about them not being chewers is true, but the partners in crime that these guys are, they ate a piano, three couches, three chairs, and just about every window-sill in the house. But it was all worth the joy that they brought back into the house and made it full again. Huckleberry has grown into a 130 lb. barrel of jiggly joy, and Georgia is our petite little 90lb. peanut. And when they look at you with those expressive faces where you think they're about to talk, you swear you can hear their southern accents. Georgia never, leaves Jennifers side at night, there's even times when she is so comfortable in bed cuddling with my wife, that I'm actually guilted into sleeping in the living room. I completely relate and understand what you have said about your guys being there for you and helping you throught the difficult times, like its a sense of their duty. They are so emotionally expressive sometimes that its unbelievable, and Georgia is there for Jennifer on any bad day. As you can tell, our world was crushed once again when Georgia also started limping, and we were again in battle with nasty cancer.

Her recovery has been wonderful though, and there was some light shed in this blackness. Just like you, we were finacially incapable of comfortably paying for chemo; unfortunately I think that too many shun the treatment for its daunting costs. But we were offered to participate in a study affiliated with OhioState University, which pays for all chemo, metronomic followup, tests and bloodwork, and hopefully depending on her group, she is offered the new anticancer drug palladia. You commented on the strides of animal cancer research, and believe it or not, it has come so far in the last few years. This drug has high success and it wasn't available, and would have been helpful when Sophie had her cancer. The equipment, the drugs, the intent, are all parallel with human care. In fact, doctors actually learn quite a bit about cancer by treating dogs, because their lives are condensed microcosms of ours, they learn alot in short period of time. Im sorry I went on and on here, but I was excited to come across you guys. I love that you love Pyrs! Your sweet funny Patou sounds like he's gracing you with a smooth recovery as well. Georgia hasnt had a hard time really with the chemo, actually she gets more and more like herself with every day that passes; yesterday she was literally running after the snowballs I was throwing and you couldnt even tell she was missing something. Shes even standing up to Huckleberry who bounces off of everybody when you get home from work, he hasnt been able to knock her down yet! Wednesday she gets her second treatment of Carboplatin. We wish you the best of luck, and its very easy to see how much you love your boy and why! You're doing a great job, keep your head up, and if you have any questions, please ask. Take care! Ryan, Jennifer, Georgia, and Huckleberry