Man in a dog suit

Sometimes things come along you can’t do anything about. A twinge here, a new pain there. You take aspirin or the doctor prescribes a non-narcotic pain killer, but none of it works.

When it’s your dog undergoing those physical changes, you can’t know everything that bothers him.

Victor is a Standard Poodle. He weighs 80 pounds. At his physical peak five years ago, Victor weighed 95 pounds. He was a big dog. He was a runner. He was fast. He loped like a horse, long strides that covered some ground.

Victor is 12 years old. That equals 77 human years. I am 72 years old. Victor and I share ailments – painful joints when standing, pain after walking too far, an inability to run. I think our mental faculties are the same as a few years ago, but Victor can’t tell me what he thinks. I sometimes tell him what I think. He grins, so I am pretty sure he understands.

A month ago, Victor could not stand up. My wife and I helped him get his back legs straight, and then he was okay. Until he laid down again.

His veterinarian said Victor has arthritis, as well as pneumonia. A prescription drug fixed the pneumonia. Prescription pain medicine and non-prescription hemp oil have done some good with his pain.

For those few days when Victor could not stand on his own, I wondered, “How far do we let this go?” When I look at Victor’s eyes, I still see Man in a Dog Suit, just as I did when we got him at eight months old.

He is better now than he was a couple of months ago, but I still wonder how far into pain will we let him go?