Living with an Old Man

Living with a very old senior citizen is never easy, but we try to make do, since our senior citizen is a terrier mix. His name is Louie, as faithful readers of this blog know well. By our calculations, the number of faithful readers of this blog is: 0.

Louie's back legs have started to go, so he doesn't have much of the spring he had in his mid-single digits. He can't jump up on the bed anymore, and his attempts to get up on the couch are a 50-50 affair, with some successful and some resulting in him holding onto the seat cushions for dear life with his front paws, with a kind of desperate look on his face, determined not to give up the progress he's made but unsure how to proceed. Then he falls back to the floor, gives up and wanders away. If you noticed his thwarted assault on the couch and approach to physically lift him up, he will avoid you, as if to say, "I think I know why you are chasing me, and I refuse to submit as I find your help humiliating and frankly a bit discomfiting." Sometimes I'll grab him and heave him up anyway; he then leaps back down, only enjoying a sojourn on the Davenport if it is the result of his own efforts.

Also, his back leg weakness makes the usual race down the stairs to greet us when we walk in the door an adventure in skidding. Louie doesn't seem to remember the last time and will run down the carpeted stairs just as fast as Elliot, but when he reaches the tiled front entryway his back legs will fishtail out from under him like a drunken hockey mascot attempting to run on the ice in street shoes. Occasionally, he will bash into the front door. But like any dog, he doesn't seem to mind, or notice, or certainly not remember the next time.

With regard to the bed -- ours is, admittedly, too high -- he seems to have given up trying to get up onto it, even though he very much used to like to sleep there. I recently bought carpeted stairs made for just such a need, but they are kind of steep and Louie will have nothing to do with them. When we try to force him to make an ascent, he struggles and falls/jumps off. Of course Elliot is no help, because when you try to get him to use the stairs, he just springs up onto the bed in one leap, wondering what all the fuss is about.

Also, in our ongoing efforts to make Louie's last years as comfortable as possible, we bought him a new bed, the kind that had and seemed to favor when he was young and I lived in Burbank. He sniffed it, tested it out reluctantly, pawed and scraped at it to try to make it conform to his specifications, then wandered away annoyed. After several days of this, we gave in and returned his old bed (given many years ago by his Aunt Lee Anne) to its rightful place and he seems happy again. The new bed sits in the living room, available to all comers, dog or human. Much to our delight Elliot was discovered sleeping on it the other day. This is the first time in recorded history that Elliot has slept on a dog bed. Maybe he'll play with his first dog toy someday soon.