Tuesday – Waiting for the Dog to Die
Jun. 16th, 2009 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
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I've always liked dogs. A good dog is loyal, fun, sweet, and friendly. Having a good dog in your life lowers your blood pressure, makes photos taken around your house cuter by adding the fuzz factor, and gives you a good excuse to exercise by enticing you to take walks that are beneficial to you and the beast both. I had a great dog: she was so sweet that we called her "the love sponge" because she soaked up love from any human willing to show her affection. I still have this dog; she has just lived long passed her expiration date.
At the risk of sounding like a heartless jerk, I wish she'd just die already.
My dog is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, a breed that is supposed to live about 10 years. My dog is now 50% beyond that. For more than a decade, people who saw her would say, Awwww! Look how cute!, because she was about as cute as a dog can be. Now they say, Aw, man! What's wrong with it? She has chronic dermatitis that causes her to lose her hair in patches and makes her skin flake and smell bad. She's lame in one hind leg. She's mostly blind and all deaf. What fur she has left is grizzled and gray. She'd rather sleep than play.
"But she still eats and she still wags her tail," my husband says, "when she stops doing both of those things, we'll talk about putting her down."
He's got a point. Obviously, life still gives her some pleasure. I've never respected people who abandon or kill off their pets when they stop being cute. But the fact that she no longer smells cute causes me some consternation. The other thing that causes me consternation is the fact that I trip over her a lot.
Since she first started to lose her senses of sight and sound, she began to stay close to us to keep track of where we are. By close, I mean "underfoot." If she's not hanging out next to our ankles and using us as seeing-eye humans, she parks herself right in whatever pathway she knows we will walk through to keep us from leaving the room without her being aware. I understand why she does these things, but I can only have so much sympathy as I am falling face-first toward the floor after yet again getting my feet entangled in a small, smelly dog.
Still, the idea of putting her to sleep is heart breaking. She was a wonderful dog for a lot of years. Getting old happens to everyone lucky enough not to die young and it's not her fault. Given all that, I have to honest and admit it would be a relief if she would die peacefully in her sleep. Within a few weeks, I bet I could have the house smelling pleasant again.
I recently read an article about a dachshund in Long Island who has lived 21 years. The article was written to be cute and endearing.
For some reason, I found it very, very depressing.
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.
.
I've always liked dogs. A good dog is loyal, fun, sweet, and friendly. Having a good dog in your life lowers your blood pressure, makes photos taken around your house cuter by adding the fuzz factor, and gives you a good excuse to exercise by enticing you to take walks that are beneficial to you and the beast both. I had a great dog: she was so sweet that we called her "the love sponge" because she soaked up love from any human willing to show her affection. I still have this dog; she has just lived long passed her expiration date.
At the risk of sounding like a heartless jerk, I wish she'd just die already.
My dog is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, a breed that is supposed to live about 10 years. My dog is now 50% beyond that. For more than a decade, people who saw her would say, Awwww! Look how cute!, because she was about as cute as a dog can be. Now they say, Aw, man! What's wrong with it? She has chronic dermatitis that causes her to lose her hair in patches and makes her skin flake and smell bad. She's lame in one hind leg. She's mostly blind and all deaf. What fur she has left is grizzled and gray. She'd rather sleep than play.
"But she still eats and she still wags her tail," my husband says, "when she stops doing both of those things, we'll talk about putting her down."
He's got a point. Obviously, life still gives her some pleasure. I've never respected people who abandon or kill off their pets when they stop being cute. But the fact that she no longer smells cute causes me some consternation. The other thing that causes me consternation is the fact that I trip over her a lot.
Since she first started to lose her senses of sight and sound, she began to stay close to us to keep track of where we are. By close, I mean "underfoot." If she's not hanging out next to our ankles and using us as seeing-eye humans, she parks herself right in whatever pathway she knows we will walk through to keep us from leaving the room without her being aware. I understand why she does these things, but I can only have so much sympathy as I am falling face-first toward the floor after yet again getting my feet entangled in a small, smelly dog.
Still, the idea of putting her to sleep is heart breaking. She was a wonderful dog for a lot of years. Getting old happens to everyone lucky enough not to die young and it's not her fault. Given all that, I have to honest and admit it would be a relief if she would die peacefully in her sleep. Within a few weeks, I bet I could have the house smelling pleasant again.
I recently read an article about a dachshund in Long Island who has lived 21 years. The article was written to be cute and endearing.
For some reason, I found it very, very depressing.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-16 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-17 04:12 pm (UTC)I haven't got the message from my dog yet that she has given up. It's only in the last year she has gotten so decrepit. I'm worried she doesn't think we can live without her, and is hanging around on our account.
I'm a wuss: I'll let Jeff make the decision, since she treats him like the pack leader and I'm treated more like another dog that only barely outranks her.