Just let go of Juneau, 14 years old, adopted him 12 years ago. A true fetch fiend, and a great guard dog, he was ever vigilant even to his last days. My head knows it was his time, but my heart is fucking ragged right now. RIP Junebug 💖
Edit to add: thank you all for your support. I am pretty deeply introverted and don’t have many people to lean on. Being able to share this part of his journey has been very helpful with this heavy heart of mine. Thank you all and take care, and for those of you with pets of your own, dote upon them a little extra for me 💖
Thank you 🙏
I’d say I agree with the other commenter. You know your girl best and will be able to tell if she is still happy and able to live her life in a fulfilling way. From what you mentioned, it sounds like she is still able to do the things she loves with you without undue difficulty ❤️
With Juneau, even though he was still happy to see me and his other favorite people, enjoyed barking at squirrels while he meandered about his yard, still wanted to play fetch, good appetite, strong heart, all the same spirit was there, but I knew his physical body was failing him. It was primarily his hips and back legs. He had similar hip problems as your girlie and while they had been manageable for a long time, I’d say in the past several months the muscles in his hindquarters were becoming very weak which really changed his ability to live at his own liberty. He was having trouble lifting his hips up off the ground and the amount of time that he could spend up doing what he liked was waning quickly. Especially toward the end when he did stand he was a bit wobbly and unstable with his hind legs so he could only spend so much time up before having to rest again. In the last couple weeks, I could tell just getting up to drink water, eat his meals, or get out to the yard was more challenging than it ought to be. I know he was still objectively happy with his companions and all the extra time I spent petting him, but he had always been an independent dog (part Pyrenees so while he loved his people/pack, he still greatly valued his space and autonomy) and that independence was pretty much gone.
I hope you and Delia have as much good time together as you can, give her some extra snuggles and snacks for me ❤️
Aww man, that sounds like what our future is going to hold unfortunately. It really hit me this past December we moved into a 2 story house. Almost her whole life Delia slept with my youngest daughter (now almost 14 herself, as soon as she moved to her own toddler bed Delia claimed it as hers to share), but in the new house the bedrooms are all up a big, steep, wood flight of stairs. The first night she tried to make it up and her hips couldn’t handle it, so some tears were shed and we got her a nice kennel to sleep in downstairs. Now she doesn’t seem to mind (and my daughter eventually got over it) but that made concrete how old she’s getting.
I had a similar adjustment with Juneau regarding stairs, I am also in a 2 level house, though at the time my stairs were carpeted which made them a little easier. I had a downstairs roommate who Juneau would regularly go to see, and even though eventually they moved out, Junebug still liked to make the rounds downstairs after they left. At some point I noticed that he was less stable and safe moving up and down the stairs so I decided to baby-gate off the stairwell and keep him up on the main level. If it’s any consolance, it was over a year ago that I had to do that, so maybe as long as you keep Delia on a low-impact lifestyle she’ll have lots more good time with your family 💖