One healthy mutt!
We always told our kids they could have a dog when we bought our own house and it had a fenced yard for the dog to run around in. So when we finally bought our first home the kids were very excited not for the house but the dog they had been promised for years. Unfortunately the house didn't have a fenced yard. After a year we were able to put up a fence and the next day we went to the local pound. We were unsuccessful at the first two pounds. They had a total of four dogs between them. They didn't feel comfortable adopting to us because of how big our family was for some of the dogs and the other dogs they said they couldn't adopt to us because we had an infant in our home. Our excitement and hopes of having dog were fading fast. I looked up a couple of local rescues and most of them said that if we never owned that breed of dog then we couldn't adopt from them. There was one more pound left we headed out but very low expectations. To our surprise they had two puppies there a brother and a sister. They were adorable and we decided to put in an application. After talking with the lady at the counter we decided our chances were better with the brother, who only had one application, rather then the sister, who had eight applications already. We got the call the next day that we were approved for the brother. His name was Harvey due to his markings but we changed his name to Tutus. They told us full grown he would be about 65 pounds and he is a lab/hound/pit mix.
Titus in now two years old and 75 pounds of goofy mutt. I do know from family and friends with larger breed dogs they tend to have hip issues as they get older. After doing some research and talking with his vet we started him on OPC 3 with Glucosamine which is good for cats and dogs. We are also giving him a Multivitamin for dogs . I was a little nervous because I hear so many people say how much trouble they have getting their pets to take vitamins. The good thing is these are a powder we sprinkle over his food each morning. He gets fed twice a day and only gets the vitamins in the morning. After a while we noticed he really wasn't eating as much at night. I was a little worried and I noticed that when he would go to his food bowl he would spit out the food if it didn't have his vitamins on it! So, I tried giving him one in the morning and the other at night. It worked! Titus taste tested and approved.
One of the other products we use for Titus is the Pad & Paw Balm. We take him everywhere with us so he walks around on all kinds of surfaces. The summer seems to be harder on his paws then winter. We put it on before we go camping to help protect him from damaging his pads walking on the hot surfaces in the summer.
He is one of the family now and we want to make sure he is healthy and is with us for as long as possible.
