Life in a Dog Pack: Old Age

I had to share this… It touched my heart and required several tissues for me to read through to the end!  Marion~

by Dave Schuler on August 16, 2013  -  The Glittering Eye  -  Cross-Posted at Just More More Pet

When you live in a dog pack, eventually, if you are very lucky, you will experience life with an old dog. Tally, at 15 years four months, is the oldest dog it has been our good fortune to share our lives with.

Living with a geriatric dog means that every day is a new adventure. Not only are there the regular routine activities of meals, potty breaks, and medications, we try to remain sensitive to Tally’s limitations, adapting to them as new challenges arise, so that we can ensure that she is as happy and comfortable as we can keep her.

We’ve placed cheap runners and area rugs strategically so that Tally can move about without being forced to navigate bare wood floors. As she’s gotten weaker over the years her ability to manage bare floors has diminished and we’ve changed to take that into account.

Tally no longer sleeps with us. She gave up climbing stairs several years ago and since then we’ve left her on her own recognizance on the first floor. Generally, she’s just fine there—she’s always preferred her own company—but, occasionally, we’ll hear a yelp and rush downstairs to find she’s trapped herself beneath a chair, slipped off the rugs we’ve placed for her convenience and safety, or walked into a corner and is too befuddled to make her way out without assistance.

On rare occasions she’s had nighttime “accidents”. That’s just the cost of doing business. She’s always very embarrassed about it.

Walks have become increasingly rare. She wants to walk and sometimes demands a walk but we understand that she really doesn’t have as much ability to handle a long walk as she thinks she does. I’m not prepared to carry a tired fifty pound dog home in my arms so we limit her walks to three or four blocks, sometimes just a block depending on how she feels that particular day.

She wants to play ball but, sadly, her vision is failing so, if you throw the ball more than a few feet away from her, she won’t be able to find it. My wife is better at playing ball with Tally these days than I am.

Every night we have the same ritual. I’ll let her out the back door for her final nightly elimination and she won’t come back in until I’ve chased her one slow circumnavigation around our backyard, then helped her up the two stairs into the house. The joy in her eyes during these low speed chases is a delight to see. I’ve taken to calling her “the White Bronco”.

Last night we had something of a scare. When she rose from a nap she began a series of odd, hopping bounds. She wouldn’t stop. It was quite alarming.

We moved the other dogs elsewhere in the house and let her outside. She continued the hopping. My wife thought it was some sort of neurological malfunction. I thought she’d awoken with a stitch in her leg and, like an athlete with a leg cramp, was trying to run it out. She was unable to put weight on her left foreleg but wasn’t strong enough to maintain her balance and stand in one place. Hence the odd, forward-moving, hopping bound.

After a while she stopped and, although she was still hobbling a bit, she was behaving much more normally. I gave her an extra half Rimadyl before we went to sleep and this morning she’s shown no signs of a return to her previous condition.

It was, however, a reminder that Tally won’t be with us a great deal longer and we must savor every moment we have with her. We are resolved that Tally will enjoy her life as long as she lives. So far, so good.

The other dogs show Tally considerable deference, each in their own way. Will is extremely fond of her. Nola gives her a wide berth (although she’s not above stealing some of Tally’s food when she has the chance—stolen food always tastes better). Smidge, with typical Australian Shepherd temperament, is worried about her. She herds her, blocks her from moving into spaces she thinks are too dangerous for her (Smidge and Tally have different views on this subject), and sleeps curled up with her. It’s like having her own personal sheep.

I don’t know how our pack dynamics will change when Tally is no longer with us. It’s not something I look forward to. Although she’s always been highly independent, she and Jenny made us into a pack. Tally taught us all to howl.

Related: 

Pet Age 

The Nutrient Your Pet Needs More of As They Age: Protein 

World’s Oldest Dog Dies At Age 26….Requiescat in pace 

The Lottie June Show – WORLD’S OLDEST CHIHUAHUA 

How Long Will Your Dog Be with You? It Depends Heavily on This… 

Part 2 of Dr. Becker’s Interview with Bestselling Author Ted Kerasote: The Seven Factors that Determine How Long Your Dog Will Live 

Pet owners turning to non-traditional 

A Natural Herb That Fights Cancer, or Chemotherapy for Your Sick Pet… Which Would You Choose?

‘Until One Has Loved an Animal, Part of Their Sour Remains Unawakened’ 

Adopt a Senior Pet… 

WCBM’s Les Kinsolving’s beautiful tribute to Brendan, Griffen, and all dogs and dog owners

Technorati Tags: for the love of a pet,until you have loved a pet...,pets and holidays,dogs,senior dogs,geriatric pets,geratric dogs,love,dogs are family,pets are family,dog age,dog pack,dog packs,pack dynamics,oldest dogs

Can Dogs Smell Cancer?

“All over the world, major universities are researching the therapeutic value of pets in our society and the number of hospitals, nursing homes, prisons and mental institutions which are employing full-time pet therapists and animals is increasing daily.” ~ Betty White, American Actress, Animal Activist, and Author of Pet Love

ScienceDaily (Jan. 6, 2006) — In a society where lung and breast cancers are leading causes of cancer death worldwide, early detection of the disease is highly desirable. In a new scientific study, researchers present astonishing new evidence that man’s best friend, the dog, may have the capacity to contribute to the process of early cancer detection.

In this study which will be published in the March 2006 issue of the journal Integrative Cancer Therapies published by SAGE Publications, researchers reveal scientific evidence that a dog’s extraordinary scenting ability can distinguish people with both early and late stage lung and breast cancers from healthy controls. The research, which was performed in California, was recently documented by the BBC in the United Kingdom, and is soon to be aired in the United States.

Other scientific studies have documented the abilities of dogs to identify chemicals that are diluted as low as parts per trillion. The clinical implications of canine olfaction first came to light in the case report of a dog alerting its owner to the presence of a melanoma by constantly sniffing the skin lesion. Subsequent studies published in major medical journals confirmed the ability of trained dogs to detect both melanomas and bladder cancers. The new study, led by Michael McCulloch of the Pine Street Foundation in San Anselmo, California, and Tadeusz Jezierski of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding, is the first to test whether dogs can detect cancers only by sniffing the exhaled breath of cancer patients.

In this study, five household dogs were trained within a short 3-week period to detect lung or breast cancer by sniffing the breath of cancer participants. The trial itself consisted of 86 cancer patients (55 with lung cancer and 31 with breast cancer) and a control sample of 83 healthy patients. All cancer patients had recently been diagnosed with cancer through biopsy-confirmed conventional methods such as a mammogram, or CAT scan and had not yet undergone any chemotherapy treatment. During the study, the dogs were presented with breath samples from the cancer patients and the controls, captured in a special tube. Dogs were trained to give a positive identification of a cancer patient by sitting or lying down directly in front of a test station containing a cancer patient sample, while ignoring control samples. Standard, humane methods of dog training employing food rewards and a clicker, as well as assessment of the dog’s behavior by observers blinded to the identity of the cancer patient and control samples, were used in the experiment.

The results of the study showed that dogs can detect breast and lung cancer with sensitivity and specificity between 88% and 97%. The high accuracy persisted even after results were adjusted to take into account whether the lung cancer patients were currently smokers. Moreover, the study also confirmed that the trained dogs could even detect the early stages of lung cancer, as well as early breast cancer. The researchers concluded that breath analysis has the potential to provide a substantial reduction in the uncertainty currently seen in cancer diagnosis, once further work has been carried out to standardize and expand this methodology.

This study was supported by the MACH Foundation (Fairfax, CA), Guide Dogs for the Blind (San Rafael, CA) and Frank and Carol Rosemayr (Kentfield, CA).

Adapted from materials provided by SAGE Publications, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Source:  Just One More Pet - 04.27.09

Posted:  True Health is True Wealth

Related Articles:

• Stroke Heroes and Their Pets
• Pet Therapy
• Doggie Doctors Diagnose Their Owners
• Top 10 Human Medications That Poison Our Pets