Neko is 10! On loving my older dog

photo: Alejandro Coakley

Neko turns 10 this week. Or, you know, sometime this month. You know how it is with rescue dog birthdays. It’s exciting because it’s quite a landmark for any dog, but it’s that much more exciting because, when Neko received her bone tumor diagnosis, I thought we’d never reach this point.

If you haven’t read Neko’s bio, she lost a leg to osteosarc a few months before her sixth birthday. She was given a 12-18 month prognosis from there even with treatment. Going ahead with treatment, I still pre-emptively mourned the lazy old mutt I would probably never get to bum around with. I worried that I would lose her before I was in a living situation that would allow me to adopt another dog, especially after my landlord turned down my request to bring another dog in after I’d met someone who was looking to find a new, loving home for their dog for a variety of reasons. I’d always imagined being able to get another dog while Neko was still around so that she could show them what’s what. I suppose it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility yet, but aside from the fact that my landlord won’t allow another dog, I don’t have room in my life to give a puppy or young dog the time and attention they really need right now.

I remember the frenetic energy Neko had when she was a pup – really up until her brains got delivered at some point when she was 2. We would spend hours romping around in the woods trying to burn off the energy, and I suspect Neko covered something like four times as much distance as I did with all her zigging and zagging, her running ahead and running back. I lost 70 pounds in the first two years I had Neko (only about 50 of which I could really stand to lose), due to the combination of the forest-romping and the underemployment that gave me the time to do it. I don’t have that kind of time these days, and a dog that age really needs that level of activity to keep their brain happy.

Neko still gets into moods where she wants to sprint circles around me – the other day she orbited me at top speed for several minutes and the flash of crazy puppy-ness was like a magical time machine. She still greets me with the same song and dance routine she always has when I get home from work. But she’s also pretty happy to spend most of the day sprawled on the guest bed, looking out the window, or curled up in her favorite chair, which I’m not entirely sure how she fits into. I am loving the chill older dog energy.

The fact that I thought I’d never get to see them makes me treasure the gray in her muzzle and the old dog lump on her belly (and yes, it’s just a benign lipoma). Everyone get a little creaky as they get older, regardless of their leg count. It’s something to keep in mind with our tripawds, especially if they lost their leg as a young dog, when we are inclined to suspect every creak. It also makes hearing stories of people surrendering their 9 year-old dogs in favor of a younger one go from merely disgusting to a personal slap in the face to each of us that have struggled just to get to that point with our dogs (whether we’ve made it or not).

I don’t have illusions about the challenges that life with an older dog may bring: Gentle, the lab-setter mix my parents got 10 months before they got me, lived well past her 15th birthday, though she didn’t quite make it to 16. There were points that got really rough in the last few years. But one thing about the way dogs perceive time – the way they only seem to see things in terms of now or forever – means that elderly dogs don’t have the same regrets of a lost past or fears about the future that we do as humans (photographer Nancy LeVine’s series Senior Dogs Across America is built around this idea and seriously worth checking out). This perception of time also offers us as Tripawd companions a useful lesson about the serenity of focusing on, living in and enjoying the present moment – warm sun and a gentle breeze on soft fur while sprawled on new grass, a playful, hungry, bouncing “welcome home” song and dance, feet in a cool stream on a hot day – rather than building anxiety about six months or a year down the road. We’re already doing everything we can. Loving the moment is part of that.

Happy Birthday, Honey Bear. Whatever it is you’re doing, keep it up.
photo: Alejandro Coakley