Loving Your Aging Dog

There’s no two ways about it…Genevieve is an old lady. She takes 8 pills a day to keep her from having diarrhea, which sometimes works. She take 1 pill a day to help keep her from peeing uncontrollably. She takes 1 pill a day to help her appetite and cognitive function. She’s blind. She doesn’t leave the house anymore, except to go in the back yard to do her business. We take her out front sometimes, but after 2 1/2 years of being blind, I think it’s scary for her. I can’t leave her in the back yard, because she might get stuck behind the air conditioner unit or tangled up in the rose bushes.

I’ll admit, I miss my walking buddy. I miss the days when she was thrilled to go for a 3 to 4 mile walk with me, trotting the whole way, happy to be home to her water and a nap. I miss the days when she would follow me around during the day, especially after I came home to work. She stopped coming upstairs about 6 months ago, after almost falling down the stairs a couple of times. I think up is fine, down is dangerous.

But now we’re in this new time, a time when we have to watch her and make sure she’s not suffering, make sure she’s content and comfortable. Sometimes difficult when a previously piggish pooch suddenly becomes a presently picky pooch, turning her nose up at many of my attempts to get her to eat. Sometimes she’ll go on a strike and not eat for 2 or 3 days. Once this happened, and we made an appointment to have her put to sleep the following Monday. But then she rallied and started eating over the weekend, and the vet said it was up to us, there was no immediate need to put her down. Ugh. What a horrid decision. Do we put her to sleep now, to avoid any future suffering? Or do we wait, promise ourselves that we’ll watch and do our best, but try to enjoy our last days with her. We decided we weren’t ready to let her go, as she was still comfortable and content. But we’re on alert, watching for that time when she won’t be OK anymore. We’ve talked to Maya, who says she’s not happy about it, but she understands. Ugh.

We love our baby dog. We try to give her all of the attention and love we can, though like an old person, she’s not always interested or engaged. At least she’s not grumpy. For now, it’s about trying to get her to eat. Trying to get all of those damn pills down her throat. Trying to keep perspective, and know that we don’t want her to suffer, but at the same time, we don’t need to let her go before her time. Not easy.