For obvious reasons, it’s a rare person who wants to adopt a 8 1/2-year-old dog. We want a dog that will be with us for many years, and we don’t even want to think about the time when they will grow old and die. I’d say we’re all in agreement on that. Losing a dog never gets easy, and each time one of mine passes, it rips my heart out as hard as it did with the first one 50 years ago.
That having been said, you’ll notice that everything I’ve written so far has to do with the human and humans’ feelings. But what about the dog? Dogs, for the most part, live in the moment. A dog has no thoughts about longevity, loss, and death. All it knows is what it lives from day to day, and all it wants is to be with its human and to experience love and care and nurture and to know its human is totally devoted to it. That’s how dogs are. If a dog has a loving home for a month or a lifetime, it’s just glad for the blessings of the day.
When you look at it from the dog’s perspective, you can see that a senior Dober is every bit in need of such a home as a pup is, and maybe more so. A pup, bursting with energy, only knows excitement and curiosity for the most part, but an old dog has seen a lot of life and knows things no pup can know yet. It may be that the senior dog remembers hard times and poor treatment, or remembers good care all his life. Either way, he has experience, and either way, he’s going to be more appreciative of a loving home than any pup has the experience to know about.
So here’s Berkeley. He’s almost nine years old. His dad died and his mom can’t keep him by herself, so he ended up at a shelter. Everything about this dear old fellow says he’s gentle, calm, and longing to be in a loving home once again.
If you can look at this from the dog’s perspective, you’ll understand what a good thing you’ll be doing to take him home and make him part of your family for the few years he has remaining. If your heart is big enough for that, make an appointment to meet him once your application is approved. Come sit with and make of him. Perchance take him home where he’ll be complete once more and love you with all that’s in him for the time he has remaining. |
