Hello! We are requesting your support to raise funds to help our family in paying for our dog Bear's chemotherapy treatment for his lymphoma and help him BEAT CANCER!

Bear (@aouchi1) is a 12-year-old Yorkshire Terrier rescue with one eye that we adopted in 2018. He was previously surrendered to a shelter by his former owners with bite wounds on his head and his left eye popping out, saying he was hit by a car. They asked the shelter to euthanize him. Thankfully, the shelter saw potential in our sweet Bear and their vet removed his eye and stitched up his wounds. The vet who took care of Bear said his wounds were not consistent with getting hit by a car, but rather they thought the owners used Bear as a bait dog for dog fighting due to the bite wounds and further bite marks/holes they found on Bear's ears :( how awful!!

In December 2017, once Bear healed from his injuries, a rescue asked our dear friends in San Diego (@sebastian_the_maltese) if they had room to foster him. One look was all it took and they were off to pick him up. That same evening, they texted our family his picture and shared his story. After some frequent updates and more pictures, and eventually, a meet and greet, we fell in love with Bear, and on 2/18/18, Bear came home with us, his furever family!

Bear has now been a part of our family for the last 8 years and we love him so much and can't imagine life without him. While he has a very tragic backstory, his previous (terrible!) owners abandoning him at the shelter was a blessing in disguise. Bear has had the biggest glow-up since and lives his best life every day. He is so full of life - he loves going on his walks, exploring the outdoors (he loves to stick his head in all the bushes to see what's hiding in there and rolling around on the grass!), barking at horses on TV (as well as those pesky screensavers that pop up when Hulu is idling), and so much more.

To our dismay, though, Bear was diagnosed with lymphoma on 3/9/25. At first, we didn't know what was wrong and thought maybe he just caught a doggy virus when he all of a sudden stopped eating one day and had these vestibular episodes of fainting. The vet couldn't determine what could be wrong until an ultrasound of his abdomen was performed and they found nodules on his liver, spleen, and mesentery - all suspicious of cancer. We moved forward with completing a fine-needle aspirate procedure for Bear and hoped the nodules were non-cancerous, but unfortunately, the cytology report revealed a positive diagnosis for lymphoma, and a subsequent PARR test indicated he may have T-cell lymphoma. We were absolutely heartbroken and started to worry about how much longer we had with our sweet, lively Bear.

Luckily, chemotherapy is an option for treating lymphoma, so we immediately decided to move forward with starting Bear on chemotherapy with the CHOP protocol. He has been undergoing weekly chemotherapy treatments since 3/11/25, and based on subsequent ultrasounds that were performed on 3/17/25, 4/22/25, and 5/27/25, it seems that the treatment is working on Bear as the majority of his nodules have disappeared (all but one!). Bear has been so strong through his treatment and is our little warrior. He continues to be the same spunky and loving Bear that we know and love throughout it all and we couldn't be more grateful.

We are hopeful about continuing the full 24-week treatment to keep Bear in remission and we are seeking some financial assistance through donations due to how expensive chemo is. We have pet insurance coverage of $5,000, however this was all used up for Bear's diagnostic tests/visits that led to his lymphoma diagnosis. Since then, we have paid out of pocket for Bear's chemotherapy and have already spent over $15,000 for his treatment. We want to go above and beyond for Bear and give him the best chances for quality of life by continuing his chemo (he deserves the world!), but hope to get your support in making this happen. We are grateful for your consideration and for helping Bear to beat cancer!!