Elder Care and Furballs
This is Sam. He's 16 years old, which, in human-adjusted terms, works out to be about equivalent to 112. He is as stubborn, slow, and potentially senile as any person would be at that age, and I clean up a lot more pet messes from my floor than I will ever tell my guests. He and I have been BFFs--or possibly co-dependent--for 15 years, though, and so I will put up with the frustration, worry, and expense that come with caring for an extremely senior dog. He has earned it, and he's definitely worth it.
There's increasingly deep piles of research available about the turmoil--emotional and otherwise--brought on by caring for an elderly or terminally ill family member. The cognitive dissonance, frustrations, and grief that can accompany those experiences are profound. Unsurprisingly, in our pet-centric and scientifically-saturated culture, researchers have turned their attention to caring for terminally ill animals. But while the research may leave pet owners feeling reassured that they're among good company, it probably doesn't offer much in the way of actionable advice. So, as a human well-versed in caring for an extremely geriatric, though not technically terminally ill, dog, let me offer some tips:
1) Invest in headphones. Your dog might still like his walks, but he's probably going to take them at a speed so slow you can't even believe it exists. Music, podcasts, audiobooks, or anything else that can be digitized will keep your attention busy and give your dog time to sniff the same blade of grass for two-and-a-half minutes, take one step away, then go back to smell it again.
2) Keep paper towels and Borax handy. Your pet very likely is going to have some accidents here and there. This is the same sweet fur ball who kept you company for years, and she wants to do the right thing. Sometimes her system just can't manage it, but nothing gets stains out of carpet better than warm water and Borax.
3) Advanced age and declining health do not mean you have to accept everything your pet does. Barking at pedestrians to GET OFF HIS LAWN is one of Sam's favorite hobbies. Even in the middle of the night. Even when he is hallucinating those pedestrians. Sometimes I tell him to pull it together and shut up. Sometimes he actually does. And sometimes he wins and I end up taking him out so that he can stand stock still and look annoyed for having been drawn away from his guard duties.
4) Order your meds online. Meds at the vet's office really are outrageously expensive. Sam and I have two of the same prescriptions--him for arthritis pain, me for headaches--and I don't have pet insurance. His pills at the vet are 10-12x more expensive than mine at CVS; they're still pricey online, but at a somewhat less painful 4-6x my human price.
5) Accept that frustration is part of the deal, but not the whole thing. Your best friend is needier than ever before, and watching his daily decline is a special kind of difficult. But he's still there, behind eyes that are cloudier and under diagnoses that are scary, and he still knows that you love him and he is safe. He will still find ways to make you laugh and steal your food and remind you that somebody thinks you're the world's greatest human. Your situation may not have a happy ending, but that doesn't mean it can't be a good one. So enjoy living with your pet on what may be borrowed time, scratch him behind the ears, and maybe turn on a loud fan so you can get a good night's sleep. Because you and I both know he's going to keep barking at every imaginary pair of feet he sees.
