Aging dog in 2019 Amazing Stories!

Today the first concrete signs that my dog is getting old revealed themselves. It was so gorgeous here weather-wise today that when he begged for a second walk about an hour after his first walk this morning (about 3 miles in length), I caved and we drove to a trail and walked for another couple of hours. Yes, that probably sounds long in general, but we’ve been doing super long walks since the beginning of time. He seemed to have energy the entire time and never once just stopped walking. He’s done that before on warmer days when he’s just over it and wants to be done (he’s a cold weather dog), but he didn’t do that at all today. So, we got back to the car, and he literally couldn’t get in. He could get his top half into the car but not his hips/hind legs. I had to lift his back end up and get him in. It was an emotional punch to the gut.

We drove home and all I could think about was “we live on the second floor....if he can’t climb stairs, I’m screwed.” He weighs roughly 70lbs. Thankfully he didn’t seem to have much of an issue with the stairs, he was just slow going. The bed, however, he can’t get himself up onto and he wont let me help. It’s the same problem with the car; his top half of his body goes up, but bottom half is no-going. I feel so awful knowing I unknowingly pushed him too far. He showed no signs of pain or struggle.

He was adopted from the shelter so his exact age isn’t known, but they thought he was about 1.5 years old when we adopted him, so I celebrate his birthday every January. Assuming he was born in January, he’ll be 9 years old in a couple months. It so cliche, but he’s like my child. He was the only thing I wanted out of the divorce and about the only thing I got. So now we enter this next phase of life called “remember your dog is a senior, he’s going to act like a young adult and play like a young adult until he can’t physically hide it, so you have to be the one to put the brakes on and say ‘we’re done for the day, buddy’.”

In other news, I have a date tomorrow. With a woman. A friend of a friend and NOT someone I found online. I first met her at a beer festival we all went to in July. I haven’t seen her since, but we’ve been FB friends since the beer festival and we seem to have a lot in common. The stakes feel higher though with it being someone NOT from the internet.

Last updated November 02, 2019