My Rookie Cookie turned 7 yesterday (to the best of my knowledge- I don’t know if the rescue knew his exact birthday, but it’s close enough since we adopted him at ~4 months old). In the vet world, 7 is the somewhat arbitrary designation for a “senior” pet if you have a dog or a cat, so I obviously have some mixed feelings about this birthday. For dogs in particular, a teacup poodle is obviously expected to lived twice as long, if not more, than a Great Dane. At about 53 pounds, Rook is somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.
Rook’s always been a pretty healthy dog. Once his puppy giardia cleared, he literally never had diarrhea until a bout that lasted for several days 1-2 years ago. (Forgive me- 2020 has really screwed up my perception of time.) He generally has a stomach of steel. Occasionally, he throws up bile if he goes too long between meals. He’s never been particularly heat tolerant, sometimes snores and occasionally wakes me up coughing in the middle of the night, probably secondary to some allergen or his likely imperfect airway. He’s had two histiocytomas in his life- one on his neck and one on a paw- that both resolved, as they should, on their own within a couple of months. Once he had a weird case of cellulitis on his lower lip, and he recently developed a small skin growth on the left side of his head and one on the left side of his chest. (One of these days, they’ll bother me enough to aspirate them, or I’ll just take them off whenever he’s able to land on my dental table next.) He suffers from no chronic conditions and just takes his monthly preventatives and some joint supplements to be proactive.
I worry, as Rook gets older though, because Flint was always the picture of health… until he wasn’t. Because he was dying. Ultimately, there was nothing I could do to stop it. It’s been 4 years and 16 days since our radiologist found the mass on his spleen and 4 years and 12 days since I took out his spleen that never made it to its destination for biopsy. (Thanks, FedEx. Really appreciate your exemplary work and perfect communication there.) It’s been 3 years and 5 months since we said, “Good-bye,” to Flinty, and every day I miss my perfect best friend with all of my heart.
At one time, even before Flint was sick, a colleague said to me about Rook that he may not be my favorite then, but some day, he would be. After Flint died, I was so glad to have Rook. His presence meant that I still had a routine, I still had him to walk and feed every morning and every evening. I had him to squish and snuggle when my sadness was just too much. Because Rookie was there for me during that time in my life, he will always have a spot in my heart that no other dog can claim. (Not that he had a choice, but I like to think he’s glad to be part of our family and in our lives.)
Now, he’s definitely more settled than he used to be. When we brought Rook home, we quickly realized that he actually had MORE energy than we had been looking for in our new addition. He was, “GO!, GO!, GO!,” all the time, running around, barking, playing with toys, harassing Flint to play with him, jumping and nipping at us. He still wakes up most mornings somewhere between 6 and 7 and starts moving about the house. He still expects to go out and have breakfast by 7-7:30 am, but he’ll happily go back to bed afterwards. The difference is that in younger years, he’d get up readily when we were ready to start our day; now, he may take his time joining us downstairs on the weekends. He sleeps most of the day and usually goes to bed by 8 pm. He has his active spurts and his expectations for walks and food at certain points in the day. He still gets “spicy” when he sees other dogs on walks or will lunge for runners, bicycles, motorcycles and the like if you aren’t watching for those kinds of things while out and about. In general, he is less reactive, particularly about other dogs on leash, than he used to be, but as I’ve said before, it’s a work in progress.
The long and short of it is: he’s healthy now, but isn’t a puppy anymore, by any stretch. I hope he stays healthy for many years to come. I want him to be 14, at least, and still joining us for walks around the neighborhood, if not regular trips to the park. The thing is that you’re never guaranteed that. It doesn’t matter how excellent his care has always been or how good his health is today. I didn’t have an exact birthday for Flint either, but he was probably about a year old when we adopted him. Based on that estimate, he was 9 when he got terminal cancer, and his 10th birthday was his last. I don’t want to think about that possibility for Rook, but given my experience, I can’t help that it sneaks into my mind from time-to-time. The best I can do is try to push it out, keep doing what I do for Rookie, squish him daily and enjoy all of the walks and snuggles we can for whatever number of (hopefully many) years we will have together going forward. And start scanning his spleen on a regular basis, even if it’s unlikely he’ll be a Flinty repeat.
“Enjoy life. There’s plenty of time to be dead.” ~ Hans Christian Anderson
