In January 2007, my fiancée went to our local dog and cat shelter, from which we’d already adopted three cats. We saw an elderly (fourteen-year-old) Beagle shivering in his kennel and asked to get him out for a visit. He was emaciated and obviously an emotional basket-case. His five-year owners left him there three months earlier, claiming he had ruined $10,000(!) in mattresses, etc. by peeing on them. Later, we read his paperwork and it became clear they did not want the responsibility of a senior dog—plus they had gotten a puppy, so they just discarded Ashby Wigglesworth (he was already named when we got him, of course).
This old guy was so emotionally scarred, he would not wag his tail or bark! In three months’ time, with a lot of love and patience, he came out of his shell and became the joyful (albeit timid) Beagle he was meant to be. In May of 2007, we found out from the vet that he had congestive heart failure and, as we already knew, he was almost completely both blind and deaf. We kept him happy and barking until last August 27th, when he crashed and the vet felt that Ashby was suffering due to malignant brain and spinal lesions that had broken free and traveled to his lungs. We made the heartbreaking decision to euthanize him, as he was suffering and wouldn’t get any better. We both held him as he “went to sleep.”
That was one of the most painful moments of my life, but I would not trade the time with my precious little old man, Ashby, for anything in this world. Senior dogs and cats are a real challenge and the grief when it is time to say goodbye is deep and real and painful—but they are worth all of it. Puppies and kittens are pure magic, but older animals are just as magical in their wise, accepting way and I sincerely hope more people will adopt them, as they are all too often overlooked and pushed aside ... that should NEVER happen to ANYBODY just because we grow old.
