Description

Riley Bear is our pride joy, our puppy, our first-born. He has been in our lives since August 1999. Riley Bear has been continues to be a very loving and constant companion to us. Even though he is 12 years old he continues to have spurts of puppy energy.


??In October of 2002, Benny (a stray) made his way into our home and hearts. After a few stressful days of new sibling rivalry, Riley and Benny learned to live with each other. In spite of Riley continuously insisting that he could be a cat as well as a dog (he would get up into my lap and would start to do this weird growl, which we figured out he was trying to purr.) they became great friends. Wed wake up in the morning and find the two of them cuddling at the foot of the bed, oftentimes cleaning one anothers face.


In the last month Riley’s energy level decreased quite a bit and started to have difficulty getting up, sometimes needing assistance standing and going up stairs. During Riley’s December visit to our vet, she noted that his spleen seemed to be enlarged and recommended doing X-rays. We finally had enough money saved to do X-rays last week and received the bad news that there may be a tumor on his spleen. We decided to go for a second opinion. They confirmed with an ultrasound and biopsy that Riley Bear has a softball-size cyst attached to his prostate that is pushing his organs to the side and against his spine, as well as irregularities to his spleen. Surgery is highly recommended ASAP, before this cyst ruptures.


No one is ever prepared for a sudden expense such as this, but our story is even more heart breaking.


Please visit our fundraising page at http://www.gofundme.com/cl3t8 for the full story, and to help us.