# Critique Big Ol' Bear?



## Subdolus (Jul 28, 2014)

I know it's not a perfect stack, but it's the best I've been able to get with him so far (and I'm amazed he stood still long enough to get this one!).

Also have a couple of videos of him moving here and here.

Anyway, this is a just for fun because I'm curious critique; we don't do any showing or competition with him and wouldn't expect that he'd bring home any ribbons. 

I CAN tell you up front that he's larger than breed standard; last time he was weighed he was 103lb and, if I recall, he's about 27.5" at the shoulder, which is a little bit taller than breed standard.










A pair of headshots:

















Sitting:









Front head view:


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## lhczth (Apr 5, 2000)

For some reason I can not get your photos to load.


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## car2ner (Apr 9, 2014)

I don't know enough to critique like a breeder will but I can tell you this: He looks handsome to me, comfortable, confident, happy.


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## lhczth (Apr 5, 2000)

Now the photos are there. 

Large male with good withers, slight dip behind the withers, good position and length of croup. Good angulation front and rear, good pasterns and feet. Very nice color and pigment. I would like to see a slightly more masculine head and he is a little heavy. I would take some weight off of him.


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## my boy diesel (Mar 9, 2013)

i love his colors 
i agree with ihczth that his head seems too 'pretty' and slightly feminine but his coloration wow he is nice!

that ol bmi gets them every time though


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## Subdolus (Jul 28, 2014)

lhczth said:


> Now the photos are there.
> 
> Large male with good withers, slight dip behind the withers, good position and length of croup. Good angulation front and rear, good pasterns and feet. Very nice color and pigment. I would like to see a slightly more masculine head and he is a little heavy. I would take some weight off of him.


Yeah, he's waaaay heavy, and that's not good for any part of him, especially his hips.

105lb when we adopted him in July, vet wants to see him down around 90 if possible.

He's down to about 100lb in the--just about a month we've had him, so hopefully it'll be easier to get his weight down a bit more.

Hopefully with exercise and continued not having free access to food (raw feeding, we don't just leave food out because that would be really, really gross!  ), he'll get down to a better weight.


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## my boy diesel (Mar 9, 2013)

as soon as he can do it, up the exercise it will help a lot!

how old is he?
like humans the older they get the harder it is to take off weight


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## Subdolus (Jul 28, 2014)

my boy diesel said:


> as soon as he can do it, up the exercise it will help a lot!
> 
> how old is he?
> like humans the older they get the harder it is to take off weight



He's 7 1/2 years old (and recently got his first Old Man White Whisker!).
He'll be 8 on December 29th.

He's still super active, though, so it's not at all tricky to get him to want to go for a jog or a bike ride. If it's not sweltering hot, he can run full speed for about 2 miles before he starts to slow down.
If it IS sweltering hot, well, I don't even try to exercise him like that and we just take walks or slow bike rides.

His hips are likely mild arthritis or possibly throwback to the lymes infection the shelter told us that his last owner had informed them of when they dropped him off. He was treated for the lymes and is now vaccinated against it so hopefully he won't have too many flare ups due to that.

The main way you can see his hips might hurt a bit come in the form of, "won't jump onto things, even though you can see he really wants to, even if he's invited to jump onto said things."

We started adding raw beef trachea to his diet on a daily basis for glucosamine/chondroitin supplementation, so hopefully that will help out in addition to taking some weight off of him.

Whatever pain his hips have is pretty mild right now, though, as it doesn't affect his movement other than the jumping/standing up aspect. I'd like to keep it that way as long as possible as I've seen how crippling arthritis can be for dogs.


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## my boy diesel (Mar 9, 2013)

i would add actual glucosamine with chondroitin and other ingredients 
i have had good luck with phycox in our older boy

Joint Health Supplements for Canines - Phycox for Dogs


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## Subdolus (Jul 28, 2014)

my boy diesel said:


> i would add actual glucosamine with chondroitin and other ingredients
> i have had good luck with phycox in our older boy
> 
> Joint Health Supplements for Canines - Phycox for Dogs


Raw beef trachea is a natural source of both things, which is why we use those.

I'll look into the other recommendation as well, thanks!


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