He leaves large chunks of black hair around the house, whines if I don’t have his food ready the minute he walks in the door from taking care of his business, wakes me up in the middle of the night to go out to sniff grass and barks for help when he once again gets trapped in the bathroom after drinking toilet water. And like almost every teen I know, he is always hungry, even after I just fed him.
Despite all that, he's a great guy.
Most of his days are spent sleeping on his bed downstairs. And it’s when he’s a sleep, I think I worry the most.Despite all that, he's a great guy.
Bailey is my 13-year-old black lab with gray patches on his feet, nose, chest, belly and around his eyes. He has arthritis, is a little hard of hearing except when the refrigerator opens and needs guidance to come back inside because sometimes he forgets where he is.
Next to the words loyal, unconditional love, faithful and stubborn should be a picture of Bailey.
And that’s why it pains me to hear people say, Wow, Bailey’s 13. He doesn’t have much longer. Labs don’t live that long.
I would have to go to confession if I reported what I think when people say this.
Still, I worry about him. A lot.
There are moments during the day when he’s sleeping that I call his name just to make sure he’s OK. He lifts his head from his bed, looks at me as if to say, “I am 91 years old. Let me sleep. That’s what an old guy like me does.” He gives me a really dirty look after I have done this about five times in one day.
What amazes me about Bailey is his perseverance. Every night he climbs 17 stairs to make his way to my 14-year-old son’s room. My son and Bailey share the same birthday, so that’s the reason we give for him picking my son to hang out with.
Climbing the stairs takes Bailey’s every effort. He puts up his front paws, followed by his back paws, “thump.” Front paws, back paws, “thump.” Again and again until he reaches the landing where he pauses, looks up at the last few stairs and starts again. He labors to breath, heavily panting once he reaches the top, where he again pauses before slowly making his way to my son’s room.
A few times, he has stumbled up and down the stairs. We put a barricade at the bottom of the stairs – that only made him more determined. He crashed through one and cried until we finally gave in and took it down.
In the morning, he waits for me to get up and we slowly walk down the stairs, me in front – just in case.
Update at 3:33 p.m.
I wrote the above post around 7 a.m. I planned on finishing it later. This morning I went upstairs around 9 to brush my teeth and when I returned downstairs, I found Bailey had an accident on his bed and he couldn’t get up. His left, back leg isn’t working. I tried coaxing him with food to walk. It didn’t work. After exhausting every way to try to get him to stand up, I called my husband. Nothing he did worked either. We called our vet’s office to make an appointment. My husband took Bailey to the vet, while I went to an appointment for work. The news – the vet gave Bailey some pills to help him but he thinks Bailey has a neurological problem that is preventing him from being able to walk. If Bailey can’t walk by Friday, we’ve been advised to put him to sleep. A stubborn old fellow, Bailey scoots on his bottom using his three legs to move him. We are trying to make him comfortable. Definitely not ready for this and having to tell my children. Ok, miracle drugs – work.
awww- this made me cry.
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