Happy Birthday, Old Girl!

Our pup is fourteen years old today. Happy Birthday, Zoey!

Of course I can remember the day she came home at ten weeks of age. I remember thinking how big she looked for that age; not a puppy-look but more like a teenager. I thought maybe she was going to be bigger than female Pudel Pointers are supposed to be. But she didn't become a big dog. Remaining on the smaller side is how she turned out.

She's the first dog we've ever had who wasn't a chow hound from the word go. Always rather finicky about her dry food, but eager to inhale the raw venison she's been raised on. We'd manage to fatten her up a wee bit over each winter but then summer would come and she'd spend her days outside patrolling our big fenced in yard when she wasn't out running in the woods with us.

We thought she would never outgrow her puppy personality. (Hyper and frustrating at times!) And she didn't until about age eleven or twelve. Then last summer, almost overnight, we noticed a remarkable difference and she started acting like an old dog. Sadly, her eyesight and hearing seem to have checked out to a large degree.

In the morning she gets a little dish of kibble which she sometimes eats, sometimes doesn't. At night we've started feeding her a mixture of cooked rice and ground cooked venison with a couple chunks of her raw venison meat on top and she consistently devours it and then checks the floor surrounding her dish for anything she might have missed. But she's still not putting on any weight; rather she's lost quite a bit and isn't much now but bedraggled fur and bones.

She's still enjoying life though. ( Mostly enjoying sleeping, I admit.) The second hubby sits down at night for a little recreational reading before bedtime, she plops at his feet giving him the old evil eye until he gets up and gives her a small treat to munch on. Then she says good night and goes to bed.

Sometimes she doesn't want to go for a walk at all and then other times she's eager to go and exhibits some of her old pep and energy.

Her new habit is to go through the whole house scrunching up any small rug she can. Maybe it's harder to find a comfortable spot on which to rest her bony frame these days. (Although she does have three comfy dog beds in various rooms of the house!)

Most importantly, the old girl exhibits no pain so we'll keep catering to her. Let's see, fourteen years times seven to equal her age in human years? That would make her ninety-eight today. Maybe I'll feel like going through the house messing up rugs when I'm her age. I do hope I get something else besides rice and venison as a steady diet though.