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A letter to the parent of a senior dog
How do you want the last few years to be?
For eight years, you could not get your key in the lock without hearing him.
The nails on the hardwood. The scramble. The little whine that started before you had even turned the handle, because he had heard your car door two minutes ago and he had been waiting.
You would open the door and he would be right there. Full body wag. Spinning in that tight little circle he did. Trying to bring you a toy, dropping it, picking it up again, forgetting what he was doing because you were home and that was the only thing that mattered.
You stood in the doorway for a second, listening. Then you saw him.
He was on his bed in the living room. Head up. Watching you. Tail going against the cushion. Thump. Thump. Thump.
You crossed the room and knelt down next to him and he pushed his face into your neck the way he always has, and you told him it was okay, that you would come to him from now on, that it was okay.
You have been telling yourself he is just slowing down.
He is not just slowing down. You know that. You have known for weeks. Maybe months. You just did not want to say it out loud, because saying it out loud makes it real.
The truth is he is spending his days in a body that no longer moves the way his heart still wants it to. And you are spending your days pretending you have not noticed.
You have started reading the stories differently. The ones you used to scroll past. The ones from other dog parents talking about the day they had to decide. The day they said "he cannot get up anymore, and I cannot watch him try one more time."
You do not know how you would know. You do not know if you would know too late. You do not know if you are supposed to be doing something right now that you are not doing.
And underneath all of it, quieter than everything else, the question you never let yourself finish.
How much time does he have left. And what am I doing with it.
Here is the question nobody asks out loud, because it feels like giving up to say it.
How do you want the last few years to be?
Not "how do we get back what we had." Not "how do we fix him." Those questions belong to a younger dog. Those questions belong to a season that has already ended.
How do you want the mornings to feel. How do you want the walks to look. What kind of chapter is this going to be, the one where you both give up quietly, or the one where you fight for the small things
because the small things are what he still notices.
You do not get to write the last page. But you get to write these ones.
