Sunday, May 11, 2025, my big dog, Bella became...old. That's not her birthday. It's when she started acting...old. She now has a geriatric head tilt, trembling back legs, ongoing vertigo with accompanying nausea which makes her not want to eat, and spends most of her days lying down.
I've had other dogs who lived fairly long lives, but I've never had dogs that were...old. Usually, they had to be put to sleep at some point because they had a serious medical condition (cancer, kidney failure, etc.) and they were in pain just being. This dog is not in pain. She's clingy. She's nervous. She's well, beyond the balance, vertigo, trembling issues, but she's...old.
We now have to leave the door with the dog door open because she finds it hard to get through the dog door. We have to walk her outside to "do her business" because she's become less...assertive, she's skittish. We have to accept that she will fall over, struggle to get to her feet, and move gingerly.
We're all working on this together.
