I confess my own dogs are getting older.
They are 14 and 16 years old, and although they are both little guys, the aging process is advancing rapidly. Its something I have a hard time admitting. I’m not in denial; I just don’t want it to happen.
Pet owners know that we will probably outlive our dogs, whether we got them as puppies or adopted them as adult dogs. Their lifespan is just shorter than ours.
We give them the best food, lots of exercise, regular veterinary check-ups, vaccinations, and of course, our love and affection. Yet despite all of our efforts, they persist on racking up the years.
We can’t stem that tide but we do everything we can to ease them through the aches and pains of their aging bodies. We buy glucosamine and chondroitin, kibble made palatable for seniors, orthopedic beds and lifting harnesses, salmon oil and vitamin supplements, ramps to the yard and the car and the human bed, pee pads and belly bands and doggie diapers.
Its hard to watch their bodies age: their eyes get cloudy, their hearing deteriorates. Worst of all is canine dementia. My 16 year old has it. She paces aimlessly, wakes in the middle of the night in confusion, barks at noises only she can hear – and this from a dog that NEVER barked before. And of course, she is incontinent.
The thing is, she doesn’t seem to be in pain. She is happy to see me, happy to go outside, happy to eat her meals and happy to try to eat her brother’s meal. She still attempts to get at the cat food – and the cat litter. She knows when I am cooking chicken – her sense of smell is excellent still – and is the first one to wait at my feet for a handout.
Dog trainer that I am, there is no training my girl anymore.
So I joke that my house has become a nursing home for dogs, or at least, assisted living. What we do for our loved ones as they age – dogs included – is make their lives as easy and pleasant as possible. But what we are really doing is attempting to control the inevitable. We think we can slow the car down and maybe bypass the exit. I’m just as guilty as my clients for wanting my dear friends here with me forever.
I am reminded of what Anna Quindlen said in her book Good Dog. Stay. “…the life of a dog is not much of a mystery…with few exceptions, he will be who he has always been. His routine will be unvarying and his pleasures will be predictable – a pond, a squirrel, a bone, a nap in the sun. It sounds so boring, and yet it is one of the things that make dogs so important to people. In a world that seems so uncertain, in lives that seem sometimes to ricochet from challenge to upheaval and back again, a dog can be counted on in a way that’s true of little else.”
And so we count on our dogs. Young and old.
