24/07/2025
🐻 Bear Diaries: The Road to Becoming 🐾
Some dogs arrive in your life already knowing how to be part of a family.
Bear didn’t.
He arrived shut down, scared of the world, unsure of his place in it.
But slowly — so slowly — he’s beginning to believe that maybe this is where he’s meant to be.
🧡 This week, Bear hit the 1kg weight gain mark. That might sound small, but for him, it’s everything. It means he’s eating. Trusting. Thriving.
🧡 So the accident counter for indoors has been reset to zero - a little setback — and part of some separation anxiety which is only natural and to be expected - so something we will be working more on.
🧡 There’s been no new destruction either. Just quiet moments. Calm choices. Glimpses of a dog who no longer feels the need to lash out take out his frustrations.
🧡 He’s started place training, and watching him settle — truly settle — is a bigger win than any command we could teach.
🧡 And for the first time in his life… he swam in the sea.
Not because we asked him to.
Because he wanted to. 🌊 The problem was getting him to stop swimming.
But with every breakthrough comes new challenges.
Spending time with our own dogs has given him comfort — but also opened the door to new behaviours we’ll now need to gently guide.
And this week, Bear discovered his voice — a sound he’s never really used before. He’s barking now… exploring how to be heard. It’s messy. It’s noisy. But it’s progress.
Because progress doesn’t always look polished. Sometimes it looks like a dog barking at shadows, testing boundaries, or flopping on a mat and choosing to stay.
Bear is becoming.
Not perfect. Not fixed.
Just becoming.
And we’ll keep walking beside him — one paw at a time. 🐾
