Pyrless

Pet's Age
9 y.o.

Your Pet's Story or Bio
Pyrless is a St. John's Ambulance Therapy Dog, who worked in a youth prison. He also volunteered with me (I am an RN) in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. We visited out-lying Red Cross Centres and spent time with displaced children. Pyrless also visited nursing homes early in our work. What I am most grateful to him for, was getting me "out there" with him, and for his 7 years of guarding our home in an isolated area on the shore of Lake Superior (Goulais River area)...where he actually chased away 2 bears from our yard, and guarded over our lab Khalua, and our Border Collie Arya. I named him "Pyrless" for the word peerless, meaning without equal. Of course all animals are his equal, but he was a Great PYRenees and so I thought that "Pyrless" was a great name for him. Pyrless touched hundreds of young lives in his time. He was massive and magnificent yet always in the dirt and sand, digging holes. Pyrless was a boy who liked to push limits at times. Great Pyrenees dogs are a breed not renowned for obedience. They are well-known as independant thinkers as this breed is used for guarding livestock up in the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain, with zero human oversight. They routinely fight off wolves, bears, any and all predators. They are extremely courageous. But they think on their own. They have to when doing their natural work. It's funny watching the brave Great Pyrenees owners on youtube who enter their pyrs into agility/obedience contests. Hard to describe the hilarity that always ensues as these dogs plod along embarrassingly slowly and pick and choose the obstacles that THEY want to deal with. See "Agility Fails", lol, or just "Great Pyrenees Obedience" for a really good laugh. Pyrless was healthy as a horse even at age 9, running 3k every day or second day, however, all of his life he had debilitating mouth ulcers that were mis-diagnosed by easily 10 vets, including in veterinary university hospitals...when we finally drove all the way to Cornell University in New York, when he was 9, we finally were properly diagnosed. But it was too late. He was hospitalized many times, for thousands of dollars, during the year before I put him down. Several over-whelming instances of septicemia. He was a brave, fearless (except for thunderstorms!) boy. In the end, I was left with truly impossible choices; very very major and extremely painful surgery at age nine, or...the worst day of my life..There are no words for what I had to consider. I could not put him through that. So I let him go here at home with a home vet and his beloved pack, and my daughter and I dug his grave ourselves...took us a week. He is buried here at home, and I keep his grave up like the member of the family that he was, and always will be. He had a great, great life.