u/Random_silly_name

Julan, 11 years and 8 months, on the right is my dog and on the left, her six year old friend.

They're very cute together (most of the time).

A while ago, she had a limp and struggled quite a bit and didn't always want to go on walks, but that may have been related to a dog attack a little over a month ago.

Her physiotherapist said she doesn't really seem to be in pain, but she's weak and muscle loss probably makes everything harder for her. So now she's doing water treadmill twice a week, and doing great with it. (She's on medication and keeps that, but doesn't need more.)

Now she's gotten better and we still have good days. We still go on the odd 5 km walk when she has the energy, and she can still appreciate things like water or a ball (very adjusted play since she's almost blind and almost deaf).

But she seems so tired. She sleeps about 18 hours per day, sometimes even more (according to her Tractive), and she sometimes doesn't want to leave the car or her stroller but rather just stay there and sleep.

We go on vacation on Monday. It's been our goal and hope since last summer, that she'd live long enough to come back to her beloved island summer home. Since December, we have been far from certain that she'd make it, but now it seems she will. We'll stay there for two weeks.

After that, though... I don't know. If she lives that long, she will be 12 in October. But I don't want to keep her around until she has no joy left in life at all, just so I don't have to say goodbye. And I hope she perks up a little when the weather gets cooler but... I don't know, she might or she might not. And... When we come home, she's had her island vacation. And of course I want her to stay around for longer, much longer, but... I don't want to keep her for my sake, if she's not enjoying her life. Even if she's not actually sick or anything. Just... Tired, and her senses fading.

Pictures from yesterday and today. She's been with me in the car for work, and we've found nice places for little walks, but she didn't walk far and didn't show her usual enthusiasm.

Losing a beloved pet is hard enough, nothing needs to be added to it, but there is also the added aspect that my son used to love her and she was a big part of his life. Then, after I separated from his father a bit over two years ago, my son rejected me as a parent and is only with his father. That means he also lost her, and acts like she never existed. And it hurts so much to know that she'll almost certainly be gone before he's independent enough to be able to go against his father's wishes and reconnect with me, and he lost the last years of being with her because of the situation he is in. He won't even say goodbye to her. (He just turned 18 but he's still very dependent.)

I think maybe she's been struggling more and in more pain after the dog attack. The only severe bite was the one to her face, but it was a chaotic situation and she may well have further injured her sensitive back while I tried to defend her.

I obviously can't let her have it. She has stitches in her mouth and can only eat kibble, no chewing. But she *wants* it, and wanting things is a good thing at this point.

Context on my profile. I'll take the NSFW tag off the first post since it won't show otherwise, and it's very mild anyway.

Edit: She can *not* eat kibble. Silly me. I meant only soft food.

Post from yesterday: https://www.reddit.com/r/seniordogs/comments/1tjn9li/julan_didnt_need_this_dog_attack/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Update: Thank you so much for all your support for Julan yesterday!

She went in for surgery this morning, and I just got her back home. In the picture, she's still in the car and I had to bribe her with treats to get her to leave it. But now she's home, has had some water and soft food, and is resting.

Her surgery went well. The damage was limited to the visibly broken tooth, and it has been removed. Now she'll be on antibiotics for eight days, and is limited to soft food only until the follow up visit in about ten days. We also have to clean the wound every day and apply antibacterial paste to it.

Unfortunately, it was also discovered that she has mild anemia, with a lack of new red blood cells being produced. Further lab tests will be run to hopefully find the cause for that, which might be something we can do something about (like B12 deficiency, for example), but it might also be something more serious. We'll probably get the results on Monday.

The other dog owner (not the one who was walking them) is very apologetic and feels terrible about what happened (as any sane person would), and seems to intend to take responsibility and cover our expenses (about $1700 so far, translated to a currency that most people are familiar with, obviously not counting lost income from having to spend so much time at the hospital).

We were just on our morning walk when a dog (some kind of bulldog, I think) ran up and tried to attack Julan.

I yelled at the owner to get his dog, but then his other dog, a boxer, attacked Julan's face and refused to let go, while the smaller dog was still trying to get to her.

When we got the boxer off, the owner held her some distance away while the smaller one kept attacking. Trying to keep it away, I wished I'd had harder shoes... At least it didn't shift focus and attack me. And during all that time, blood was dripping from Julan's mouth and onto the ground. Eventually, the dog gave up and ran back to his owner.

So now, instead of working, my partner and I have spent the day at the vet hospital. The bite to Julan's face (ironically, since she didn't bite back, didn't even bark) broke one of her teeth, as well as some minor wounds. So she's had blood work done, an injection for the pain, the wound has been cleaned and treated with antibacterial paste, and we'll go back tomorrow for surgery. We don't know the extent of the damage (possible fractures etc) until then.

My poor old girl did not need this. :(

She's not entirely sold on it yet, and hasn't quite figured out the technique of getting in and out. It was delivered yesterday and we tried it - 2 km in the stroller, 4 km on her own feet and 2 km back home in the stroller.

Right now, she's having good days and happily goes for somewhat long walks on her own feet. But when we ordered it, she was slow and needed lots of breaks and didn't want to walk far.

Given how much she loves riding in a car, or sitting in a boat sniffing the air, I think it will come in handy on future bad days once she gets used to it.

I read a post here recently, on the topic of "My dog has good and bad days so how will I know?".

And it got me thinking. My dog also has good and bad days, but her bad days are so much better than the good days described in the post...

I think they will always have good and bad days, our seniors. And based on what we see, we'll always have a baseline for normal, good, and bad.

Only, as the dog ages, those baselines will move. A good day today might have been a bad day a few months ago, and a bad day now might be a good day in a few months.

So... Given that, I think it might be dangerous to only look at the ratio between good and bad days. I don't really have any mind-blowing suggestions for what to do instead (I know there is a lot out there), but a dog having mostly good days doesn't mean everything is ok and a dog having lots of bad days doesn't necessarily mean that things are terrible. It's all relative to where they are right now.

Pictures of Julan (11 and a half) today, on a good day. For the first time in a while, she has willingly walked down the stairs from our apartment instead of asking to be carried. She's on her second walk for the day, has chosen the 5 km one and hasn't needed to stop and rest yet. (Almost home.) She needs a little help over obstacles in the terrain, but with that help she's fine. She's pulling a little on the leash and keeping up a decent pace, but doesn't want to canter.

Not too long ago, I would have taken this and more for granted - every day. A while from now, it might be something I can only think back to with nostalgia, and a good day might be enjoying a ride in the stroller i ordered, sniffing around a little in a forest, and asking for cuddles when we get home...

Any thoughts? (Maybe this is just super obvious but for me it was a bit of a realisation.)

Julan's life is a lot more limited these days, making these gifts from my hunter colleague all the more valuable for her.

I worry about tooth fractures, of course, and I'm super careful when supervising her and don't let her keep going for very long so she's not tempted to bite down on the bone itself. But it makes her very happy, and that can be worth a bit of worry for me now and then.

We passed a school and some of the kids wanted to pet her through the fence. After that, she just laid down and decided to stay there for a while. (We're on our way home and that's boring.)

We bought her a cooling harness, but I didn't think she'd need it on the morning walk. But with how slow she's been, it's already getting warm and she's panting a little bit on and off.

Still tries to throw herself in the leash if she thinks she sees a chance to walk away from home, though.

She also wants to get carried down the stairs almost every walk now. (We live in an apartment with no elevator.) She stands still at the start of the stairs and leans into my arms so I can lift her. It is what it is I guess, we can't stop time... (She's well taken care of and we do what we can.)

Of course she's still old and of course it's still coming closer but she might have the summer after all.

Her limp is gone and today we've spent three hours slowly strolling around, enjoying the summer weather. She's been walking in the mud, swimming, even making a new friend (through a fence). 6 km all in all, but very slow and with lots of standing still and sniffing around.

In the last picture, I'm trying to turn home and she's trying to turn back out, saying "Can we do that just one more time?". That's something she always did when she was younger, trying to repeat the walk again instead of going home, no matter how long the walk was.

Last night, she didn't want to go on the evening walk but it turns out she just wanted our roommate to come with us. He did, and then she happily walked down the stairs and trotted ahead on the walk. Strong opinions are allowed and welcome - much better than if she'd just get passive and not care. The time of perfect obedience is a thing of the past.

Julan is 11 and a half. We really want her to have one more summer, and we recently booked the tickets for summer vacation on an island that she loves, including tickets for her.

But I'm far from certain.

In the last week or so, I've seen a slight stiffness at the beginning of walks. She doesn't normally show pain - she has spondylosis and is on Gabapentin for nerve pain, but you'd never know. She's also on Previcox (NSAID) but it's hard to tell a difference. She lost an eye to glaucoma while misdiagnosed with pannus and again, you'd never know (at least not until she perked up when the pain was gone, first with the right medication and half a year later with surgery). But now the way she walks is sometimes showing pain.

Yesterday, she slipped on the hospital floor (ironically) while on a check up for her eye and now she's visibly limping. So she's resting with only short walks for a while, hoping that will heal. But even without that, it's not "perfect" now.

She still wants to go. She wants her long walks. She wants to play. But her body struggles. It's a heated discussion every time I tell her that we have to cut the walk short and go home.

She eats her food. She begs for treats. But she doesn't come running to get them when we call. When it's time for cheese with pills, we sometimes have to come to her with it.

She doesn't have accidents. Despite her back issues, she has full control.

She sleeps well through the night. No dementia.

She's partially blind and partially deaf, can get disoriented when off the leash but gets around decently.

She doesn't have cancer or anything (that we know of).

She loves cuddles when in the mood for them.

She could probably live quite a bit longer, but I don't want to keep her around until she completely loses her spark.

I'm discussing additional pain relief with her vet, and will book a physio appointment soon to help determine the level of pain. I'm not giving up on her just like that. But she's been such a force of nature, and her head still is, that I don't think it would be right to let her fade away and live a life where most of her sources of joy are gone and she's in enough pain that it actually bothers her. No matter how much I really want to give her one more summer vacation.

Maybe she miraculously gets better again. Maybe some new pain medication helps and gives her some more time. But also... Maybe not.