Bunsen turns 9

What a life he has had

It’s Bunsen’s birthday today! The big guy turns 9.

Many of you know his story, but I’m going to tell it again. I think it’s a good one. I can’t promise you won’t cry, but I can promise you that Bunsen’s story is ALL of our story.

It is the story of a very good dog.

The Sad Part

This story starts with heartache, and even though I knew I would start this post with Kahlan’s death, I still get misty-eyed.

Kahlan was our family dog before Bunsen. She was a Golden Retriever and likely what some people call your soul dog for me. I loved that dog, and that dog was my best friend. I was her person, and she and I took solo adventures through our farmland for most of her life.

As dogs do, they age, and then they get sick, and then they die.

It was the first real loss of my life, and the loss was mind-numbing. I had no idea the pain I would feel from her death. I was tumbling in despair and grief through the coldest parts of the winter. I look back at pictures of myself after her death and my eyes are just… dead too.

As the summer approached, Kris and I took the boys to a local farmer’s market, and there in the market was a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy.

It was the cutest and friendliest thing I had ever seen in my entire life.

Shortly after this, Kris and I went to a dog show because, you know, dogs, and people were showing Golden Retrievers. It was way too much for me. They all looked like my Kahlan. I stepped away crying, and a lady approached me and asked if I was okay.

Obviously I said I was not. Not at all.

What followed was one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received.

She said that she had lost a dozen dogs in her life, and the grief never EVER gets easier. However, she said that she pours that grief into the next dog. She said that grief can go somewhere. She grabbed my arm and said, “Give your love to a new dog.”

That’s where Bunsen came from.

Bunsen the Puppy

Through some contacts, we found a Swiss family that had a breeding pair of Berners — Benny and Masha — and we went to go see the puppies.

I loved all of them, and they all hopped around wrestling with each other or exploring the garage.

As I sat on the ground, an enormous puppy padded over to me, looked at me, and bit my finger.

This was Bunsen.

The wait to get him to our house was excruciating. Though the grief of loss during this time didn’t abate, the excitement pushed it back.

I knew this new puppy wouldn’t be Kahlan, but our family was so excited to meet him.

Bunsen was a dream puppy. In fact, we now know that he is an anomaly. Bunsen potty-trained in about a week, and lots of people think this is an exaggeration, but it’s true. Beaker and Bernoulli took much longer to potty train.

Bunsen loved to learn. He was really smart, he was super brave, and he loved to please his people.

Though he wasn’t cuddly like Kahlan was, he still enjoyed pets and being with the family.

As he grew in that first year of life, he also turned me into something I wasn’t before.

The winters in Alberta are long and punishing. Previous to Bunsen, I would just hide out in the house month in and month out waiting for spring. Bunsen was a winter dog, and he had a zest for the snow and ice that couldn’t be tamed. He dragged me out into the blowing blizzards, and together we became winter explorers. I would trudge through drifts and freezing cold because that dog LOVED the winter.

Slowly I grew to love it too. Now when the first flakes fall, my heart skips a beat because winter is no longer something to wish to be over. For Bunsen, it was his wish that it would be eternal.

The Rise of a Small Social Media Account

As Bunsen approached his first birthday, he had grown into a huge dog. Even though he’s BIG, he isn’t a big Berner. Bunsen is around 95 pounds, which is on the average side for male Berners, maybe even on the smaller side. However, he is very much enormous.

I put a lab coat on him in my classroom just for fun and took a picture, and that picture went VIRAL.

It was then that our photos on Twitter began to pick up steam, and we grew an impressive account there with, I think, 30,000 followers.

Through the account, we talked about science through the lens of kindness and cuteness, and it really worked.

Beaker Arrives

For the next two years, Bunsen was this cherished dog in our house. He was our puppy puppy, and we trained him up into a good boy.

BUT he was alone.

After his third birthday, we had a tough conversation about how it wasn’t fair for him to not have a family member besides us, and we made the leap and got Beaker.

We were apprehensive that Bunsen wouldn’t take to Beaker, but we were totally wrong.

He loved that little puppy with the force of a thousand hurricanes. He guarded her, taught her the ways of being a good dog, and together they became such a dynamic duo.

Bunsen saved Beaker from a coyote attack and shielded her from a porcupine.

Soon after, Bunsen rescued a dog trapped in our creek that was lost and alone.

The legend of Bunsen grew, as did the love for him in our hearts.

Ginger and Then Bernoulli

As the years went on, our son Adam adopted a cat named Ginger, and then a couple years later we added the super goober Bernoulli to the squad.

Bunsen welcomed all the animals into the house with his big Berner heart, taking them under his protection and tutelage.

The Health Scares

Around his 7th birthday, Bunsen’s left side of his head caved in. He lost all the muscle on that side and it atrophied. We ran every kind of test on him, and all of it came back inconclusive.

A few months later, he went into medical distress and needed life-saving surgery to remove an enormous cyst that had grown in him for years. That saga is a story unto itself, but it was an unbelievably scary point.

He was this invincible dog, and to see him so frail and sick made my heart break. It was then I really understood what Kris and I had created on social media. Hundreds of thousands of people were rooting for this dog. Our community was praying and sending us their thoughts. It was overwhelming, but in a good way. Bunsen had touched so many lives, and I prayed that he would be given some grace to stay with us for longer. Not every dog gets that. Not every dog, despite prayers, science, and love, makes it.

But Bunsen pulled through.

Thanks to the skill of the surgical team, Bunsen survived, and the pack helped him heal.

Things weren’t over for Bunsen though, because in December that year he got a slipped disc and was really struggling to walk.

At this point, we took Bunsen off social media, as we didn’t want people to see him struggle like that.

We didn’t know it was a slipped disc, and I thought his struggles with walking would lead to an inability to walk, which happens to older big dogs.

Kris and I were despondent as he dodged this huge bullet, only to have bad luck take him out.

Again, Bunsen defied the odds. With rest and rehab, he recovered.

His 8th Year

For the last year, Bunsen has had the best life. He’s older. He’s slower. He’s stiffer. He sleeps more. But he’s healthy — as healthy as an eight-year-old giant breed dog could be.

He returned to adventure walks with our family, though we take a shorter path.

He returned to snow hikes and treks, though we don’t stay out for as long.

He came with us on mountain hikes, though we don’t do the hardest hikes anymore.

There is a saying with Bernese Mountain Dogs:

3 years a young dog
3 years a good dog
3 years an old dog
and anything else by the grace of God.

I know that’s the rhyme, and I get why it’s said. Bunsen has beaten the odds for Berners. We are blessed. Our family is lucky. I know that.

But Bunsen has ALWAYS been a good dog. He has been, and will be until his last day, THE BEST dog.

Bunsen is our hero. Bunsen saved our family from the black cloud of grief.

Bunsen started our social media account, which now reaches nearly a million people across social media, with MILLIONS and MILLIONS of views a month.

Happy Birthday, big guy.

You are the best, and we love you so very much.