I looked down at my dog, sleeping at my feet while I watched the Heat/Celtics game, (sigh), and had to laugh. He was sleeping on the golf club cover my friend Fern had given me because it resembled Guinness.Guinness, our Wheaten Terrier, is going to be 13 years old next month. I have been observing his aging process with great interest, and of course, sadness. The evening walks are very short now and I no longer have a companion to drag me around the neighborhood. He can no longer hop into the car, but must instead be lifted up and placed. Getting out is becoming equally difficult and sometimes, in his haste, he ends up tumbling out. I am sure it hurts. He spends most of his time snoozing. Getting up and laying down seem to be done with forethought and his joints are obviously stiff. He cannot lift his leg very high so he pees on himself and has to be washed off like a baby.
Because he has developed a seizure disorder, he is on Phenobarbital 24/7. In fact, I am convinced he is an addict as he seems to know when the doses are due and gets quite excited for his next fix. At first, he was so loopy he could hardly walk straight but he seems to be on a mellow high now. I believe that he also has the aging disorder, "sundowners", that occurs with senile dementia in humans because when it gets dark, he gets restless and begins a circular pace around the coffee table until I sit by him and he settles. My brother does a great imitation of the lower jaw tremor that Guinness has developed, and which becomes very pronounced near food or anything else he considers exciting. His little bottom teeth jut out and shiver. I just hope we don't have a hurricane this fall because I will have to wrap his mouth with duct tape to prevent serious injury.
Food itself has become a real dilemma. Guinness seems to be starved all of the time, yet his weight is the same and there are no abnormalities in his blood work that would indicate any underlying problem. He has reverted to being a bad puppy and gets into the trash, licks the suntan lotion off of my legs, and eats the fish food off of the surface of the pond when Harry feeds the goldfish. I worry a fish will go along also in his intensity. He has almost been knocked unconscious by the dishwasher and refrigerator doors because the second they are open, he is half inside looking for any errant morsel and they can be shut before we realize where he is. My kitchen floor gets a complete wash frequently, and not by me. I have to wash it after he does.
Guinness's need to be close has increased to the point that I now have three legs and seem to be stumbling over the extra one quite often. I just hope I am not at the top of the stairs during one of these tripping episodes. Guinness was always a slut for attention, but fortunately now he is not jumping up, just living under us. He is a little more civilized, finally.
We got Guinness from a breeder in Nebraska and he was flown in a crate to us. I have no guilt that I did not "rescue" a dog. I knew what I wanted, Sam viewed the videotape of the litter and picked the runt. His breed is frisky, eternally puppy like, and shed free. I acted offended for years when the kids implied that he was dumb, but secretly I knew his charms did not lay in his intellect, but in his ability to make me laugh. He would tear through our Cleveland house so fast that he could not stop on the hardwood floors and almost knocked himself unconscious. When he jumped the invisible fence and ran away from home years ago (dogs will not cross back over them), and was missing for three days, I was so upset and riddled with guilt that I had forgotten to put his collar back on after a bath. I posted fliers, ran an ad and lo and behold, I saw an ad in the paper for a found "poodle". Wrong breed but right dog. A call verified that he had been picked up near my home on our normal walking route by a greyhound rescue person. Guinness spent three days pampered in a kennel surrounded by greyhounds. I will never forget that when I picked him up and he was spinning and jumping in excitement, all of the other dogs in the kennel (greyhounds) were calmly lying about looking at me like they were saying "thank god you have come to get this pest out of here." He never had a calm bone in his body until this past year or so.
Guinness was also "skunked" numerous times in our old neighborhood. Not one to learn the first time! (The kids were right). I would be in bed with the screens open to the cool night air and suddenly smell the signs. Dreading the results, I would open the front door and try to grab him before he could run in the house and all around every room as we chased him in the middle of the night to get him in the shower for a treatment. The house would smell for days.
Guinness may be needier now. And, he may be "taking" more than he is "giving." But all I have to do is look down and see him with his "mini-me" plopped on his head, and I laugh, and it is worthwhile.
Food itself has become a real dilemma. Guinness seems to be starved all of the time, yet his weight is the same and there are no abnormalities in his blood work that would indicate any underlying problem. He has reverted to being a bad puppy and gets into the trash, licks the suntan lotion off of my legs, and eats the fish food off of the surface of the pond when Harry feeds the goldfish. I worry a fish will go along also in his intensity. He has almost been knocked unconscious by the dishwasher and refrigerator doors because the second they are open, he is half inside looking for any errant morsel and they can be shut before we realize where he is. My kitchen floor gets a complete wash frequently, and not by me. I have to wash it after he does.
Guinness's need to be close has increased to the point that I now have three legs and seem to be stumbling over the extra one quite often. I just hope I am not at the top of the stairs during one of these tripping episodes. Guinness was always a slut for attention, but fortunately now he is not jumping up, just living under us. He is a little more civilized, finally.
We got Guinness from a breeder in Nebraska and he was flown in a crate to us. I have no guilt that I did not "rescue" a dog. I knew what I wanted, Sam viewed the videotape of the litter and picked the runt. His breed is frisky, eternally puppy like, and shed free. I acted offended for years when the kids implied that he was dumb, but secretly I knew his charms did not lay in his intellect, but in his ability to make me laugh. He would tear through our Cleveland house so fast that he could not stop on the hardwood floors and almost knocked himself unconscious. When he jumped the invisible fence and ran away from home years ago (dogs will not cross back over them), and was missing for three days, I was so upset and riddled with guilt that I had forgotten to put his collar back on after a bath. I posted fliers, ran an ad and lo and behold, I saw an ad in the paper for a found "poodle". Wrong breed but right dog. A call verified that he had been picked up near my home on our normal walking route by a greyhound rescue person. Guinness spent three days pampered in a kennel surrounded by greyhounds. I will never forget that when I picked him up and he was spinning and jumping in excitement, all of the other dogs in the kennel (greyhounds) were calmly lying about looking at me like they were saying "thank god you have come to get this pest out of here." He never had a calm bone in his body until this past year or so.
Guinness was also "skunked" numerous times in our old neighborhood. Not one to learn the first time! (The kids were right). I would be in bed with the screens open to the cool night air and suddenly smell the signs. Dreading the results, I would open the front door and try to grab him before he could run in the house and all around every room as we chased him in the middle of the night to get him in the shower for a treatment. The house would smell for days.
Guinness may be needier now. And, he may be "taking" more than he is "giving." But all I have to do is look down and see him with his "mini-me" plopped on his head, and I laugh, and it is worthwhile.
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