Pion Ista "tinydog" Gritter, 2005-2021

Over the years this blog has shifted focus away from life stuff and toward...well, mostly books and poems. But occasionally a life thing is big and needs saying.

My dog died yesterday.

She would have been 16 in April. She had probably 14.5 years of being quite healthy and energetic, a year or so of having some arthritis and being a little more fragile, and then the last half year she was clearly an elderly dog. We couldn't let her go up and down the stairs any more--she sometimes fell, and it was only a matter of time until one of the falls hurt her if we'd let them continue. So we were blocking off the top or bottom of the stairs, depending, and carrying her up and down. A friend made her raised bowls to help with her arthritis, and we were feeding her soft food. We were doing all we could for her, and in the last few months I started thinking, maybe we should get old dogs from now on, we're really good at care for them.

I don't think that now. Because the care for them is not all there is, there's also losing them, and I don't think I could bear going through this over and over again without the springy young dog stages in between.

She was so smart. She was such a smart dog, and she was so communicative. And she was so loving. Toward the end, basically the only thing she wanted was to cuddle, and we did that a lot. We did that a lot.

I don't know how my days will be without this sweet little opinionated old lady dog. I have so much more to say about her. I wish I had so much more time with her.