For over two weeks we negotiated on price, working to get the cost to a point where the store would not make so much money that they’d want to put in an order for another Berner to replace her. Finally, after a close friend, acting as the authority of all things in the sport of purebred dogs, announced to all in the store that they’d be lucky to get $500 for a blue-eyed Berner, the store called to close the deal.
Life has never been the same since Tazzy arrived. Nicknamed Tazzy Roo, Taz, Spaz, Snickyfritz, and Super Freak, Tazzy is never quite comfortable with her place within the pack and she likes to pick fights her body can’t win. Tazzy always ends up with the abscessed puncture wound, not the scratches she inflicts. Once as a puppy, she gorged herself on ice cubes to the point where she was snapping at her belly because it hurt. She just didn’t want to share with Marley and Keene.
Fully grown she still looks more Greater Swiss than Berner. Coming from a puppy mill in Oklahoma, we question whether she is really a purebred Berner. And she came with the usual puppy mill health issues of ‘petstore puppy cough’ and chronic diarrhea. Tazzy continues to struggle with irritable bowel syndrome and no longer travels with us because she cannot be in a crate over night. Growing up, Tazzy seemed to have pano with intermittent shaking front legs but now we know she has severely arthritic elbows. At 3 years old, the girl who used to clear all babygates and be a chronic fence jumper, no longer even put her front feet up on the grooming table because of the pain.
But for all things Tazzy isn’t, she is a people dog and enjoys doing anything and everything with them. After a couple years of glucosamine and pain medications, Tazzy has returned to her fence jumping ways on her good days. She also still enjoys hunting any critter foolish enough to come into or near the fenced yard. The only one that got away was a very large snapping turtle. Tazzy just couldn’t figure out to pick up this thing who wouldn’t even run away!
