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My Pooch, the Pensioner

Well, it’s official. My dog is getting old.

It’s not completely unexpected, I suppose. We all age, at some rate or another. I know I have. Don’t let these stunningly boyish good looks fool you — I’m starting to wind down myself, as various bits of my body betray me, one by one. I have the liver of a sixty year old, the addled brain of an octagenarian, and the knees of a thirteenth-century floor-scrubbing serf. Who was stricken with polio. And born with wooden legs. On a termite farm.

Still, I manage to limp through life as best I can, and show some enthusiasm in the process. My melodramatic mutt, on the other hand, has all but given up the ghost, living out her final days amid the comfort of comfy pillows, chew toys, and three square kibbles a day.

The bitch is seven years old. Did I mention that? Seven.

Now, I understand that pooches don’t perservere quite the way we people do. The dog isn’t likely to be around to see the next ‘Roaring Twenties’, or to watch the polar ice caps finally melt, or to experience the reign of President Hilary Duff.

(I’m predicting she’ll beat out Paris Hilton and Ashley Olsen with a campaign platform of ‘Peace, Prosperity, and Prada for All’. She’ll be the cutest li’l electee since Grover Cleveland Alexander!)

“I have the liver of a sixty year old, the addled brain of an octagenarian, and the knees of a thirteenth-century floor-scrubbing serf.”

None of that explains — or excuses — the dog’s current behavior. She’s no spring chicken, sure. But that’s no reason to act as though she’s got two paws in the grave already. Some of the best bones of her life are still ahead of her, but she hardly seems interested.

Her latest old fart frailty involves cold weather. The chillier it gets outside, the less interested the pooch is in venturing out into the elements. In her puppier days, you couldn’t stop her. If might be four degrees Kelvin, with nine feet of snow on the ground, and she’d bound out the door and dig through the snowdrifts for the sheer joy of being outside.

These days, if the mercury dips below fifty, she’s having none of it. She’ll dangle one persnickety paw on the porch, feel the draft, and slink back into the house. Never mind that she’s missing a walk around the yard; she figures she can pee when she’s dead, apparently. It’s gotten so bad, last week I started dangling the mutt’s ass out the living room window to do her business.

That worked okay for a few days. Until last night, when I sneezed, accidentally squeezed her, and she shot a turd through the neighbor’s window. That wasn’t an easy situation to explain when the guy came to ask about it.

Neighbor: (holding the offending poo between thumb and forefinger) Hey, bub. This belong to you?

Me: Um… not exactly.

Neighbor: Well, did you just throw it through my window?

Me: Technically? No.

Neighbor: *blink*

Me: *blink*

Turd-Launching Dog: *blink* *blink*

Me: Look — how about I give you a hundred bucks for a new window — and a poop bag — and we pretend this never happened?

Neighbor: Make it one-fifty.

Me: Promise we’ll never speak of it again.

Neighbor: Done.

Me: I’ll get the checkbook.

Who knows how much more the dog will cost me with her premature geriactrification? All I know for now is that I’m out a hundred and fifty bucks, and there’s one more neighbor I can’t look in the eye. I could have accomplished that on my own. Damned dog. Bah.