WordSisters

Tag: dogs

  • Dogs and Aging Families

    When do people become too old to share their homes with a new dog? How do middle-aged dogs and older people find each other?

    During his annual vet visit in February 2020, Rocky was found to have a heart murmur. Covid locked down our city before we could take him to a doggie cardiologist. That visit never happened because Rocky continued his happy, boisterous life.

    Walk ahead to 2025 when Rocky hit his senior years. Since dogs pack a lot into lives of ten to fifteen years, their aging process is more compact. More dramatic. Medication helped with high blood pressure and easing anxiety due to dementia. A chiropractor supported with home exercises and massage kept his rear legs working. Playing smaller versions of fetch accommodated diminished vision. The adaptation grows.

    Over years, not months, so will ours. For Rocky we’re able to be solid caregivers.  I am not sure that I will be physically capable of supporting another dog through their final years. But how would we walk away from a beloved future family member because we’re all aging? 

    Cats and some rodent pets are not options because of allergies. We’ve done fish and snails when kids were young. None of them check any boxes of what I value in a companion creature. Spending the rest of our lives without a furry friend is hard to accept. Foster care is kind of like babysitting a neighbor’s child now and then. Can be physically demanding.  Entertaining. Heart-warming. Then the baby or child goes home and there’s no one to talk to at midnight when sleep is elusive.

     Maybe there are dog-share programs or lease a pet centers with humane housing for dogs in transition. 

    Maybe the quiet house will grow on us after Rocky’s life is over. 

  • Wet Feet and Warm Heart

    To people living in the lake-effect snow areas, Tuesday night’s seven and three-quarters inches of white stuff that landed in Door County is insignificant. Except the weather professionals predicted a dusting. Opening the door at six in the morning to send an old, thirteen-inch-tall dog with arthritis in his hind quarters required intervention by an owner still in cotton knit pajamas and slippers.

    The flip side of this story is that one of the most intensely awesome sunrises distracted attention from noting the snow depth. Bare tree branches etched black lines against nature’s red, orange, yellow, saffron into beauty that could not be painted, photographed, described. Walking along the back windows of the house behind the small dog, my eyes never slipped below the horizon. 

    Sunrise colors seem shorter as the solstice approaches. By the time boots were located and a snow-covered dog rescued, the sky had turned a warm pink then faded into regular daylight. Winter weather arrived surprising me with the gifts of sunrise, snow in the trees, wet pants and bare feet discovering small cold puddles where the furry one shook.

    In a time of deep emotions ranging from the continued happy surprises of family to dread of the immediate political future, from satisfaction in completing a complex writing project to sadness about a relative’s illness, it is easy to not notice what is simple and beautiful. Life’s gifts and losses cannot be tabulated. A stranger’s smile might change an icky morning into a better day. 

    May your holidays bring calm, happiness, and the beauty of a winter’s day even when your feet are cold or wet.

  • Don’t Open The Brown Paper Bag Next To The Ice Cream

    187f3776-4747-421f-b7b6-2ff156d465b2_400[1]“You’ll take care of the body?” she asked gently.

    “It’s going next to the ice cream in the freezer,” I told her.

    She chuckled.

    I had thought about putting our cat Angel in the shed until the ground thawed out. But that seemed insensitive and physically too far away until she was put to rest in our backyard. Of course, I could have had him cremated. But I didn’t want to. Yes, cost was part of it though I didn’t even look up how much it was. More than that, it seemed weird to have one animal cremated and not the rest.

    Yes, we have a few animals buried in our yard. I should ask for a discount from MN Pets – our go-to place for euthanizing an animal in our home. They do such a good job at it. Angel will make it one dog, four cats. MN Pets sends us a Christmas card each year.

    With Angel’s departure we are now at our city’s limit for how many animals residents can legally have — five total. We have two four-legged cats, one three-legged cat and two dogs.

    Though I did tell Buddy, our dog, that if he wasn’t careful, I’d make it a twofer. The vet wasn’t sure what to make of my joking.

    She didn’t know that we had been waiting for Angel to die for a long, long time. He was the energizer cat that went and went and went for 18 years. I’ve never had a pet that lived that long.

    Angel was my buddy. He’d meet me at the door when I came home from work and come sit with me every morning. He was MY cat.

    R.I.P. Angel
    R.I.P. Angel

    He was also the reason we had so many cat brushes around. That was our time together. I told Angel, that I would know it was his time when the day came that he didn’t want me to brush him. And, sadly, that day did come.

    I made an appointment with MN Pets for a Monday so all of us could have the weekend with Angel. I quickly changed it to Saturday when it became clear that waiting for Monday wasn’t the loving thing to do.

    Angel isn’t the first animal I’ve kept in the freezer until the ground thawed. And, he may not be the last. What else do you do in Minnesota when a pet dies in the winter? Thankfully, we have small dogs. A German Shepard or full grown lab would take up too much room.

    Having the cat in the freezer is working out okay. It just freaks out Antonio and Crystel’s friends when they tell them not to open up the paper bag next to the ice cream.