In spite of the voice in my head that practically screamed, “Bad idea alert!”, we have semi-adopted a third dog to go with our legacy dog and the little yippy bastard puppy that we have. It likely won’t be a long-term deal, though.
My in-laws have a house full of Pekingese dogs. The patriarch of that little pack is pushing 20 years old, which is 140 to you and me, as Lorne Greene would say in those old Alpo commercials. My in-laws inherited Benji from my wife’s grandma (and woe to me for not remembering if it was her maternal or paternal grandmother), who got the dog when my wife was a freshman in high school. This puts the dog no younger than 19, which is 133 to you and me.
Benji is hobbled, blind, deaf, incontinent and borderline demented. He’d really be better off being put out of his misery in a humane fashion, but no one on my wife’s side of the family really has the guts to take him to the vet to do the deed. And you know, I don’t blame them; I think I’d be afraid that my late grandma would haunt me if I had her dog put to sleep, and I really think that that’s the main stumbling block behind everyone’s apprehension toward a trip to the vet. It was Grandma’s dog! What kind of cruel, sick bastard has Grandma’s dog killed (humanely or no)? (Don’t look to me to save the day, either – just because she wasn’t family to me doesn’t mean she wasn’t family to my wife and her kin.)
Anyway, Benji just exists, having been operating in safe mode for a while now. He’s been circling the drain for years, but still keeps hanging on. It’s not really the kind of life a dog should have, but as I alluded to in the previous paragraph, who’s going to take him to have him put to sleep?
The idea was hatched last week that, because we have an outdoor kennel, Benji could live out the few remaining days of his life at our place. My wife’s dad’s eyes lit up at the thought of the idea – he didn’t have any interest in watching one of his animal companions die before his eyes, and he was the one least interested in having Benji put down.
So, for better or for worse, our kennel has essentially become a doggy hospice for the time being. With our luck, he’ll live another 10 years.
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Please note: My policy at Bramble Tamble is to not use real names for private citizens. I hope you will adhere to this policy; hell, it's my only rule here. (But you can use your own real name if you'd like. Cause I'm magnanimous like that.)