For Bear, our favorite mystery, and every extraordinary dog made of guesses, maybes, and love.
Content Note: Pet loss, grief, remembrance, and discussion of the Rainbow Bridge.
This post talks about a deeply loved dog who is no longer with us. Please read gently or save it for a day when your heart has a little more room.
Welcome back to the Den.
The lights are low, the rules are flexible, and nobody here expects you to be brave on command.
This is The Crippled Cryptid.
A soft-lit corner of the internet where disability, chronic illness, service dogs, grief, love, and everyday survival exist without apology.
If you’re new here, hi. I’m Sky.
Professional cryptid.
Former unwilling amateur cyborg.
Occasional chronic illness and disability advocate.
Medically interesting enough to make half my providers sigh when they open my chart.
I sigh too.
Then I ask for coffee.
I live in a haunted meat suit with a deeply suspicious warranty, spend a lot of time in Bed Jail™, and am almost never alone thanks to my medical alert service dog, Luna.
Part guardian. Part shadow. Part:
“Excuse me, Mama. Sit your ass down. Right now.”
Typically, you want to listen to her the first time.
Otherwise, it’s followed by the much sterner:
“Mumther, who the fuck told you that you could ignore me?”
Yup.
Leave it to me to teach my spirit guide to be a sasshole.
But when you’re a cryptid who has become a professional at ignoring their body and its needs, sometimes that’s what it takes to make you listen.
And now, because apparently one dog was not enough chaos for the Den, there’s Blitzø.
Blitzy. Binky. Itsy Bitzy Blitzy. Mr. Moo. Luna’s First Cow™.
Our eight-week-old, very spotted, increasingly enormous baby mutt.
Great Dane x Anatolian Shepherd, with a sprinkling of Kangal on his father’s side.
Unlike one very important dog who came before him, Blitzø isn’t much of a mystery genetically.
We know where he came from. We know his parents. We know the breeds that built those gigantic paws he’s currently tripping over.
What we don’t know yet is who he’s going to become.
Getting to find out is half the magic.
Then there’s M&M.
My constant. My Player 2. The one who gives the 90% when I only have 10. Garden gremlin. Best friend.
And there’s always the Yard Yeti.
Bear’s favorite person.
The one Bear would hunt down for pizza crusts. The one who got enormous doggie smiles, enthusiastic greetings, and full-body Bear hugs even if he’d only been gone for approximately five minutes.
Five minutes was apparently an eternity in Bear Time.
This space is about showing up for ourselves even when our bodies refuse to cooperate.
Chronic illness without inspiration porn.
Disability without apologies.
Love without pretending it’s always easy.
Although love around here does almost always come with at least a little dog hair.
Returning cryptids, welcome home.
New cryptids, pull up a chair.
The Lunatic Café is open.
The Den is big enough for all of us.
On today’s menu: National Mutt Day. 🐾
🐾 Before the Service Dingo and the Baby Cow, There Was Bear
July 31 is National Mutt Day here in the U.S., where we currently live, and if you’ve been around the Den for a while, you already know why this one matters.
Before Luna.
Before Blitzø.
Before service dog gear and sunflower harnesses.
Before medical alerts delivered with cattle-dog precision and increasingly judgmental facial expressions.
Before oversized puppy paws came galumphing through the Den.
There was Bear.
Our best guess was always German Shepherd mixed with Basset Hound.
But the truth is, we never really got to know for sure.
We never DNA tested him.
Life moved fast. Health got complicated. There was always something else that needed doing, fixing, paying for, surviving.
And suddenly, time wasn’t something we had as much of as we thought.
We still find handfuls of his fur tucked into corners sometimes, even after sweeping.
Nobody minds the occasional visit from doggy heaven.
Because while we never knew exactly what Bear was, we knew exactly who he was.
And that mattered so much more.
🧀 A Very Serious Bear Biography
Bear was a stubborn couch potato with the huff of a tiny old man.
A professional napper, particularly when there was a sunny patch on the deck or a comfortable blanket available for immediate annexation.
A cheese enthusiast whose devotion to dairy was rivaled only by his disdain for Mondays, mornings, and anything audacious enough to make noise before 10 a.m.
He loved marrow bones.
Yak cheese chews.
Soft plushies.
Dinos. Dumplings. Anything sufficiently squishy and nap-adjacent that could be dragged into his favorite corner.
But most of all, Bear loved being near his people.
His personality was everywhere, if you were paying attention.
Every fence line was his kingdom.
Every leaf was a potential interloper.
Golf carts, big trucks, squirrels, and even the occasional wandering duck were subject to immediate investigation and a sternly delivered BOOF.
Park walks were a symphony of barks, zoomies, and extremely important sniffs.
And then there were his awoos.
Those glorious, ridiculous Bear awoos.
He had selective affection, which meant every nuzzle, every paw dropped onto your lap, and every moment when he leaned his whole ridiculous body against you felt like receiving a medal.
Bear did not distribute his approval recklessly.
You earned that shit.
Stubborn as a rock.
Grumpy as a Monday morning.
Soft enough to melt completely when he leaned into one of his favorite humans.
And if the Yard Yeti had pizza crust?
Suddenly, negotiations were possible.
🧬 The Test We Never Took
DNA testing dogs is something I think about differently now.
There are tools available today that can offer clues about a mixed-breed dog’s ancestry and, depending on the test, identify certain genetic variants associated with inherited health conditions.
That information can be useful.
It can give you questions to bring to your veterinarian. It can sometimes point toward screenings worth discussing. Learning a dog’s ancestry can also give us additional context about the body we’re caring for.
But DNA is information.
It isn’t destiny.
A list of breed percentages cannot tell you exactly who your dog will become.
It cannot predict every behavior, personality quirk, preference, fear, friendship, or inexplicable vendetta against one particular leaf.
And pedigree certainly doesn’t determine a dog’s worth.
If you have the opportunity and resources to DNA test your mutt, it can be another tool in the toolbox for advocating for their health.
I wish we’d gotten to see Bear’s results.
I would have loved knowing what strange little genetic recipe created him.
But I don’t regret loving him without the answer.
Because National Mutt Day is also a reminder that love does not require certainty.
🐄 And Then Came a Very Different Kind of Mutt
Years after Bear came into our lives, along came Blitzø.
Which feels particularly appropriate to talk about today because Binky is also a mutt.
We just happen to know his recipe.
Great Dane x Anatolian Shepherd, with a sprinkling of Kangal on his father’s side.
No guessing required.
We know his mama. We know his dad. We know where those enormous paws, floppy ears, and rapidly expanding baby body came from.
And after loving Bear for all those years without ever knowing exactly what breeds made him Bear, there’s something strange and wonderful about getting to start at the opposite end of the story with Blitzø.
With Bear, we had the dog and wondered about the recipe.
With Blitzø, we have the recipe.
Now we get to watch the dog emerge from it.
Because knowing his breeds still doesn’t tell us who Blitzø is going to be.
He’s eight weeks old.
He doesn’t know who Blitzø is going to be either.
Right now, he’s busy being baby.
We don’t know which weird sleeping position will become his sleeping position.
Which toy he’ll carry around until it’s barely recognizable.
What food he’ll someday consider worth committing crimes for.
Whether he’ll inherit this household’s passionate distrust of suspicious leaves.
Which person will get the biggest greetings.
What ridiculous habit we’ll someday realize he’s been doing for ten years.
We’re only at the beginning.
Knowing his background does give us information we didn’t have with Bear. We can talk with his veterinary team about the health considerations that matter for a large and giant-breed dog. We can think carefully about his growth, joints, nutrition, exercise, training, and the enormous adult dog currently hiding inside that spotted baby body.
We can use what we know to advocate for him.
But his breeds are the beginning of his biography.
They aren’t the whole book.
Bear taught me that.
Blitzø gets to benefit from it.
And somewhere in the middle is Luna, purebred as can be, currently helping teach this enormous baby cow how to exist in the Den without chewing on everything he encounters.
So somehow our little canine family now contains the whole spectrum:
A mystery mutt whose recipe we’ll never know.
A purebred Service Dingo™ with a résumé.
And a known-recipe mutt whose story has barely begun.
Turns out there are a thousand ways for a dog to arrive in your life.
None of them determine how deeply they’ll become part of it.
❤️ He Was Never “Just a Mix”
Bear was never just a mix.
He was our mix.
Our mystery.
Our stubborn old man.
Our shadow on the couch.
Our quiet comfort on days when my body refused to cooperate.
Our alarm system against squirrels, golf carts, delivery trucks, suspicious leaves, and apparently ducks with questionable intentions.
We didn’t have a genetic profile.
What we had was Bear.
And Bear had a life filled with soft blankets, loud opinions, dino stuffies, marrow bones, cheese, sunny naps, pizza crust negotiations, and people who adored him exactly as he was.
Maybe that’s the real heart of National Mutt Day.
Not solving the mystery.
Getting to love it.
☀️ The Sunny Spot Got a Little More Crowded
These days, Luna has taken over Bear’s favorite sunlit spot on the deck.
She bakes herself out there like a potato.
She watches the yard.
The garden.
The birds at the feeder.
Her people.
She’s stepped into his old role of keeping an eye on all of us, carrying something forward in her own very purebred Australian Cattle Dog way.
And now?
There’s a giant spotted baby stumbling around behind her.
Blitzø is still figuring out what his place in this family looks like.
Right now, it mostly looks like oversized paws, puppy naps, following Luna around, learning the rules of the Den, and occasionally making choices that require immediate adult supervision.
He never knew Bear.
Luna never knew Bear the way we did either.
And neither of them could replace him.
They aren’t supposed to.
That’s one of the strange things about loving dogs across a lifetime.
One leaves, and the shape of your world changes forever.
Then, eventually, another arrives.
And they don’t fill the old shape.
They make a new one.
Bear was our mystery mutt.
Luna became our Service Dingo™.
And now Blitzø is growing up here too, our known-recipe mutt with Great Dane, Anatolian Shepherd, a little Kangal, and approximately seventeen metric tons of puppy still waiting to become himself.
Different dogs.
Different stories.
Different beginnings.
Same house.
Same people.
Same deck.
Same ridiculous amount of dog hair.
And, eventually, probably the same sunny spot.
Although judging by the size of Blitzø’s paws, we may need a bigger deck.
🐾 I Think Bear Would Have Loved Him
And if I’m being completely truthful, there’s another part of having Blitzø here that I wasn’t prepared for.
I wish Bear could have met him.
Blitzø is only eight weeks old.
He’s still such a baby.
He doesn’t know many things yet.
He doesn’t know where all the best nap spots in the house are.
He doesn’t know which patch of sunlight on the deck gets warmest in the afternoon.
He doesn’t know that golf carts are apparently a matter of national security.
He hasn’t learned that big trucks must be loudly informed that they have entered your jurisdiction.
He doesn’t know the fine art of the awoo.
Not yet.
And I think Bear would have taught him.
I really do.
I think Bear would have been grumpy about the puppy energy at first.
There probably would’ve been some dramatic huffing involved.
Maybe a deeply offended look in our direction that said:
You brought me WHAT?
But I think he would’ve loved Binky anyway.
I can picture Blitzø following him around on those enormous baby paws, trying desperately to figure out what the old man was doing.
Bear showing him the fence line.
Bear teaching him which noises deserved a boof.
Bear demonstrating the precise technique required to occupy the best spot on the couch.
Bear showing him where to lie on the deck when the sun was just right.
Bear teaching him how to yell at golf carts.
How to yell at big trucks.
How to negotiate for pizza crusts.
How to properly supervise the Yard Yeti.
How to curl up near your people when one of them isn’t feeling well.
Maybe, eventually, how to awoo.
God, I wish I could have heard them awoo together.
There are so many things I wish Bear could have taught him.
And that’s one of the cruel little surprises grief keeps tucked in its pockets.
You don’t only grieve the life you already had together.
Sometimes, later, something new and wonderful comes into your life and suddenly you discover an entirely new collection of moments you’ll never get to have.
I didn’t know, when we lost Bear, that someday there would be a little spotted puppy named Blitzø.
I didn’t know I’d look at this eight-week-old baby and think:
Bear should be here.
He should’ve gotten to see this.
He should’ve gotten to meet him.
Because I think he would’ve loved him.
Not necessarily immediately.
Let’s respect the grumpy old man’s reputation.
But eventually?
Yeah.
I think Binky would’ve become one of his.
And maybe Blitzø won’t get to learn those things from Bear himself.
Maybe Luna will teach him some.
Maybe we’ll teach him others.
Maybe he’ll invent entirely new household laws that Bear would have considered complete bullshit.
But when Blitzø eventually discovers the warmest place to nap…
when he finds his favorite spot on the deck…
when that giant-dog voice finally arrives and he decides to yell at his first golf cart…
when someday, if we’re lucky, he throws his head back and gives us his first ridiculous:
AWOOOOOOO…
I know exactly who I’ll think about.
The old man who should’ve been standing beside him.
Probably yelling too.
🐾 For the Mutts
So today, we celebrate the mutts.
The guesses.
The maybes.
The “probably part this, definitely part chaos.”
And the ones whose recipes we know down to the family tree, but who still manage to become creatures entirely their own.
The shelter specials.
The accidental litters.
The carefully rescued.
The unexpectedly chosen.
The ones with enormous ears and tiny legs.
The ones with enormous paws they’re still figuring out how to operate.
The ones who look like three completely unrelated dogs assembled themselves into a fourth dog and hoped nobody would ask questions.
The ones whose DNA results surprise absolutely everyone.
And the ones, like Bear, whose recipes remain mysteries forever.
We celebrate the ones curled beside us today.
And we remember the ones who left pawprints on the furniture, fur under the couch, scratches on the floor, nose prints on the windows, and permanent impressions on our lives.
Perfect lineage was never the point.
Perfect answers weren’t either.
Just imperfect, extraordinary dogs who find us and, somehow, decide we’re worth sticking around for.
🌈 Bear
Bear, wherever you are, I hope there’s endless cheese.
I hope every marrow bone is yours.
I hope the plushies are impossibly soft, the pizza crusts arrive without begging, and nobody has invented Mondays.
I hope there’s a sunlit patch that’s always exactly the right temperature.
I hope there’s a couch nobody asks you to share.
And I hope you know that sometimes we still find your fur.
We don’t mind.
Not even a little.
Luna has your spot on the deck now.
She’s keeping watch.
And there’s a little spotted baby here now, Bear.
His name is Blitzø.
You would’ve laughed at his feet.
Or huffed at them.
Probably both.
I wish you could’ve met him.
I wish he could’ve learned from you.
I wish I could’ve watched you teach him all the ridiculous little things that made you you.
But we’ll tell him about you.
We’ll show him the sunny spots.
We’ll teach him that golf carts are suspicious.
We’ll make sure he understands the importance of properly supervising the Yard Yeti.
And if he ever learns to awoo, we’ll make sure he does it properly.
Your spot is still warm.
Your people are still here.
The yard is still being watched.
And somehow, impossibly, the Den kept growing.
I think you’d approve.
Although you’d probably huff about it first.
🐕 Luna Note 🐾
I know the sunny spot belonged to Bear first.
Mama talks about him lots.
I never got to know him the way they did, but I know his smells used to live here. His things were here.
He was my best friend too.
His people are my people now.
So, I watch them.
I watch the yard.
I watch Mama.
I watch the birds because they are suspicious and clearly require supervision.
And now I watch Binky too.
He is very baby.
He has very big feet.
He does not know very many things.
I am teaching him.
I think maybe Bear would have helped.
I think maybe he still does a little bit.
Because Mama knows things Bear taught her.
And Mama teaches me.
And I teach Binky.
That’s how packs work, I think.
Also, Binky bites my legs.
We are working on that.
I didn’t take Bear’s job.
I made my own.
Binky will make his too.
But I’ll keep watching the Den for all of us.
🐾🐾
Luna
📸 Now Show Me Your Mutts
If you have a mutt in your life, please share their picture in the comments.
Tell us their name.
Tell us what breeds you know, what breeds you suspect, or what ridiculous collection of creatures you swear must have contributed to their existence.
DNA tested?
Tell us what surprised you.
Complete mystery?
Those are welcome too.
Tell us their weird habits.
Their favorite snacks.
Their crimes.
Their inexplicable grudges.
And if your mutt is no longer here, you are welcome to share them too.
Tell us about the ones waiting on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge with Bear.
They still belong in the Den.
They always will.
If today felt heavy, thank you for carrying it with me.
If it felt familiar, I’m glad you stayed.
If you’re here, you belong here.
Love you.
Now say it back.
-Sky
© The Crippled Cryptid
Disability, honesty, and a little chaos.
🔗 https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa
There’s never pressure to donate. Reading, sharing, commenting, or simply staying is more than enough.
If you’d like to support the long, slow work of staying alive, stable, and mobile:
💜 https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-skys-journey-to-health-and-mobility
Leave a comment