SOAP BOX

This section, entitled SoapBox, is a place where our volunteers and adopters can offer their opinions on issues that trouble them, or otherwise educate the public concerning dog ownership.  This column is about the joys of adopting a senior pet, and is written by Leslie Albertson, an experienced dog owner, rescuer and a director of Hedgesville Hounds.  We are grateful to Leslie for sharing her experience.

Memories of Mindy
By Leslie Albertson


Don’t be afraid to adopt a senior dog

Yes, they will die, and always sooner than you want. But it can be immensely rewarding, and an experience you will treasure. I took in Mindy, an ancient plott hound, last spring. A plea came from a rural shelter – We’re 8 to a run! Can you please help! We get a dozen of these pleas a week, I’m sure. But something struck me about that old dog. She held her head up high, even with the right shoulder out of whack, and the dangling rear leg.

An arduous transport later, she was safely ensconced in the corner of my living room. Head held high, tail swaying, and loudly telling the puppies to stay away, with that extraordinary braying houndly howl. Our vet visit was terribly difficult, the best news the vet could give me was that she didn’t have Lyme’s disease. But she did have congestive heart failure, a couple generations of heartworms, etc. Her forehead bore the dent of blunt force trauma at some point in her life, and that back leg had been broken and never properly set. She had clearly had many litters of puppies, and her coat was a dull black backdrop against her snowy white muzzle. I cried and cried. I never intended to do anything heroic, just make this old dog’s life comfortable at the end. And so I did.

At first, I cooked her chicken and rice and eggs, all good gentle things for her old stomach, and she ate them dutifully. But one night when I put her in the kitchen for the night, I caught her eating heartily from another dog’s bowl of regular chow. Eating with more gusto than she ever approached the fresh cooked meals I prepared for her. So, dog chow it was from then on out. The funniest moment I had with Mindy was coming home to her redecoration of the living room. She’d come into a false heat, and was nesting. She’d somehow dragged the pillows and duvet off the bed in the spare room out to the living room. She couldn’t quite muster the strength to pull the big cushion all the way into the living room, but it lay on the floor near the door. It warmed my heart that this old dog’s body was telling her all was well, let’s prepare for another litter.

Mindy wasn’t much in for spending time with the other dogs, and so she got walked around the neighborhood several times a day. Our best day total was 1.2 miles, or three times around the block. While I locked the door, she would go to the very end of the extending leash and wait, looking back at me and wagging her tail as if to say, Come on! Let’s get moving!

In the end it was her kidneys that gave out first. She still held her head up high, and with all the dignity in the world, she made it clear it was time to go. It was a grey day in October when we made that final trip. I never thought I’d do this, but I had her cremated, and she’s here on my desk with me, reminding me that it was good to have her around. I learned a lot from that old dog.