He is 15 and a half years old, which makes him over 100 in German shepherd/Rhodesian ridgeback years. He walks with a stiff front right leg. When he stands still, his hips sag down, protesting the effort required to stay parallel to his long spine. His soulful brown eyes are cloudy. His hearing is supremely selective.
He was my husband's dog first. I met him, Jake the dog, when he was 5 years old. Now he follows me from one room to another, painfully. He does not want to be left behind or left out. He likes to know where everyone is. My husband and I do not take overnight trips together anymore, so one of us is always with him at bedtime.
We dismantled our bed frame so Jake can get on and off the mattress easily. We tried making him sleep on the floor, but he paced and none of us got any sleep. We get up many times during the night to let him out and clean up his poop, which lands on the bed or the floor and only very rarely on the ground outside. Sometimes he ends up lying in his poop. As I apply multiple baby wipes to clean his fur, I wonder, has his time come and should we let him go?
I have guilty fantasies of going on extended family vacations, and of getting a solid night's sleep. But then he eats his special dishes with gusto--scrambled eggs and baked sweet potatoes are his favorites these days. He comforts my daughter when she cries. He sticks his nose right up to her face, as if to smell the content of her tears, to understand her better. How can we end this?
