When I finally woke him around 8:00am (we're usually up at 6am!), I noticed he’d had a urine accident on his bed. He must have slept so soundly as to have slept through it. He also was chilling, and I had to wrap him in a blanket for him to get warm. Maybe he got damp on the bed and chilled?
I think I mentioned this, if not here, then at least to my husband and my friends, that we got Smitty from the shelter where he'd been dumped by his owners. It broke my heart that they'd bring him there, instead of the vet, where he could die in their loving (???) arms. He was dumped there (sorry there is NO other term) because of "bathroom issues"!
I told my husband at the time, as I watched Smitty's ears blowing in the warm September breeze as he put his head out the window and sucked in the fresh air so unlike the stale shelter air, that if all we did was bring him to the vet that day for his final visit, it would be worth it to have gotten him from the shelter where he'd die a shelter dogs' death and not a pets' death.
But I've grown attached to him and I figure, we'll have him until the end of his days. He hasn't got bathroom issues unless he doesn't get let outside, he has always shown appropriate bathroom behavior, pottying only outside, except for when we first got him and the kids didn't let him out first thing one morning. Since then he's not had an accident despite being left for 4-6 hrs. while we are in town, he sleeps on the couch while we are gone.
He had the growths removed from his neck and chest area but they aren't healing up very well. We had them rechecked on Monday and the vet said "Well he's old and could have some immune system complications".
How do you judge the quality of life in senior pets? He spends his days snoozing on the couch and loves to go "bye bye" with us, so he and Copper usually get to go even if we're in the small car and not the pickup.
Here is Smitty, dreaming of the finer things in life...(see where his nose is!?)
