When Your Senior Pet Stops Eating...

When a human being stops eating due to illness and decline towards the end of life, it usually indicates they are ready to give up the fight. When one is frail, disabled and infirmed, the only control one has is to clench their teeth and refuse the food. So many people who don't understand this. They force feed or think that the patient is being uncooperative or unreasonable. The patient is just communicating in the only way they know how. They are saying Enough Is Enough. 

Sometimes we just need to be diagnosed to find out if there is something physically wrong, but typically if we are older or if we have already struggled with various issues, us animals often do the same thing. This is one of the clues for you, of knowing when the time is coming to help us on our way.

Am I Too Old for Another Dog? What if it Outlives Me?

Dear Jack, 
I wonder if you can address this issue sometime...I am 64 and don't want to risk getting another dog in case it would outlive me, plus am definitely not ready anyway. Thanks. Any feedback/ thoughts appreciated. 

Melissa

Dear Melissa,  

Please don't let your age hold you back from loving and adopting again. You are still very young in the scheme of things -- for all you know, you could live to 100 and have time for three more dogs! Why deny yourself the love you would experience just because of your fears? 

Here are my recommendations:

(1) Have your plan in place (we all should, no matter what age we are) to have someone ready to care for the one you leave behind if you have to leave first. 

(2) Pick an appropriate breed with a reasonable activity level to match yours.  Get an older dog if it seems a good match.  

(3)  Of course don't get another pet until you feel ready. 

We have an 80 year old friend who recently adopted a 2 year old miniature poodle. They have quickly become best friends and they need each other so much! "Buddy" keeps her young! After losing her previous dog of 11 years, she glows again with life and love. And Buddy? He is beyond happy, after coming from a home that gave him up because they didn't know how to love him. 

Our elderly friend Geri was recovering from the loss of her little dog Domino. She read my book and decided not to wait too long to give a new dog a good life. This is Buddy from VJ Ranch rescue. He is her new dream come true.

Life is simply too short --and sometimes too long-- not to take another chance on love. If you give a pet ONE DAY OF LOVE that it never otherwise would have known, it would be worth it. 

Love, 

Jack 

The Gift of ONE MORE DAY

How many of us have watched someone we love suffer for too long? They have spent weeks, months, years, declining and then, right after we make the decision to let them go, they surprise us by having a really good day?! It can throw us for a loop.   

One night Grady pee-ed all over our bed.  Our bed was also our "den," and any dog knows you don't dirty your den. This is how sick she was, to not be able to honor that. She was 14.  She had been incontinent(and arthritic and going blind and deaf over the years). Kate said to her that night, "I can't keep doing this." Kate was so tired from cleaning up after her and carrying her everywhere. Nonetheless, she did it for another two years.  It was all because she was waiting for God to call for Grady because she didn't want to have to make The Decision. 

She ultimately contacted the vet and scheduled euthanization for Monday. Sunday night we all slept on the floor with Grady instead of bringing her up onto our bed like we always did. It was the first time in many nights that she didn't get up every hour. She slept the whole night through! She got up in the morning, went outside with me with a wag in her tail! She gave a playful little awkward jump when I teased her... and she ate all of her breakfast! We couldn't believe it. Our hearts were full. 

It would be easy to second-guess whether we were doing the right thing, to move forward with the plans for the day. Maybe if we just slept on the floor with her every night she'd sleep through the night.... maybe this, maybe that, maybe, maybe, maybe...

Fortunately, our experience working with people on hospice reassured Kate. We had seen it over and over again in our therapy work. Many times people linger on their deathbeds; their breath is slowing, their feet are turning blue... and then all of a sudden one day, they rally back! Where they were confused they are now lucid. Those who were lethargic are miraculously alert and clear for the first time in a long time. They give us the impression that they are not dying after all! Oh everyone is so excited! They are clearly turning a corner and they will be well again! Our prayers have indeed been answered! 

Then, in 12 or 24 or more hours, they pass peacefully. It is not this way for everyone, but this has happened often in Kate's thirty years of experience. It matters not the age or the condition or the setting. I think perhaps it is one final chance for the body to have its Swan Song. When we know we can never do something again that we've always done, we always want to do it one more time. Sometimes that's what the final day is for. It gives us a chance to have one more time around before we transform into something else.   

"One more day

One more time

One more sunset, maybe I'd be satisfied..." 

(Click Here to listen to the song by Diamond Rio)