My dog too. He is almost 16 and also has some hind end weakness. He’s usually pretty good but can’t hold his full bladder for long, so when he wakes up he has to go out, immediately. The senior dog thing takes its toll; I haven’t slept all night in months because I take him out at least once in the night. But, he’s my boy, and so far is a happy guy. I am hoping that my next oldest dog takes a while to get to the “elderly” stage, though, because I’ll need some recovery time after this guy crosses the bridge.
HUGS
You too. :yes: I wasn’t writing to scare the OP off of senior dogs, but it is important to remember that they never get younger. If you’re already managing dogs, a senior dog may not be a lot more work, but going from zero dog to an older dog might be a rough transition if they are needy. For me, my elderly dog has been a slow transition to “needy” so I’ve worked up to it. It feels like normal to me now.
If you are kindhearted enough to be drawn to that dog, go for it. Rescue isn’t always about getting yourself a great pet. Sometimes you just want to make a sad life better.
I agree. But, it’s the “working full time” part that is the issue.
I have a friend that is a breeder and who shows and trials her purebred dogs. She often takes in an old (“sad”) dog out of rescue to give them a soft landing for the end. But she has several dogs already, and facilities and people to help out. Going from 3 dogs to 4 isn’t as difficult a transition as going from zero to 1; especially if one is needy. The OP was referring to a senior dog with special needs. That’s all I’m saying.
For an only dog or a first dog, and working full time - I’d look to something 3-7. There are a lot of dogs in that age range that could use an upgrade, too.
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We adopted our current doggy from a rescue. They said she was “about 5,” and we later learned that that meant 'just turned 8." She’s now 11, has a couple of expensive health problems (that they maybe could, maybe couldn’t have predicted) and definitely needs more care than a younger dog. Our experience with senior dogs is that they reach a place where they need more attention, more trips out during the day, more short walks, more trips to the vet, more of everything – they’re wonderful, I don’t regret the long lives ours have had, but just like older relatives, the tables turn and they become more like puppies. We have had exactly TWO nights where we haven’t had to get up and let Tia out, since December (yes, we count them!). We synchronize our schedules so one of us can be home at the 5-hour mark, because she drinks a lot of water and can’t hold it any longer than that, which means that if one of us is traveling the other one has to work a half day from home or rearrange their day accordingly.
When we were both working full time, we had middle aged dogs who could snooze all day while we were gone and then go to the barn at night and blow off steam. Our barn welcomes dogs, and our dogs were good with horses, so they got to go for trail rides, camping trips, all sorts of places. We could wear them out on the weekend and they’d tolerate 8 or 9 hours at home when we were at work (we staggered schedules then, too) but they were middle aged and Lab mixes, so the right temperament for the expectations. As they hit the 9-11-year-old mark, both slowed down a lot, both had cruciate problems, and their days of trail riding and long hikes were over, meaning we had to learn about leash walks in the city and they had to learn to stay in the car while we rode. That’s when they became more work… and that progressed with time, because once they couldn’t go to the barn at all we really had to make an effort to walk them at their pace, get home sooner, get them to their vet and acupuncture appointments, etc.
I love the dog we have now and I’m fine with taking care of all her health problems, but I miss having an active dog to take for hikes and long walks; when we got her, one of the things I told the rescue was that I really love to walk with a dog and was looking forward to doing that. It’s a little disappointing to take her for her slow, short walk to the corner and back and then go back out, without a dog, for the rest of my walk.
I do think I would like to be able to take a dog on walks and hikes and trail rides etc. So that would be a down side of a senior like Serif who has arthritis.
Tons of people work full time and have a dog (or dogs.) That’s not a problem.
However.
I wouldn’t be flying a dog from halfway around the world, sight unseen, because you’re drawn to his breed or his photo. He’s already old and has special medical needs–a trip like that could be enough to do him in (as dark as it sounds.) IMO there’s no reason to risk it vs adopting an old dog within a few hours of where you live that you can actually see and interact with prior to adopting.
I may start a separate thread. I am sort of curious how folks feel about the newer trend of shipping rescue dogs all over the country, and now, importing them from other countries as well.
I have fairly mixed feelings about it. But when I see one rural rescue in my state posting about "does anyone know of rescues taking transfers?’, where the receiving rescue can handle the transport and, AT THE SAME TIME, I’m seeing some fairly well respected organizations in my very urban area in the same state talking about their new shipments of rescues from California (and yet others with dogs out of Asia??!??) - I begin to wonder what’s really happening here. It has to be more cost effective to drive an animal 4 hrs across the state, than ship them 800 miles or 3000+ miles across the country or the ocean.
Laura, I have a friend who rescues dogs from St. Croix. She flies them over. There aren’t enough people there interested in adopting. In NC, we send a lot of dogs up North. It just seems certain areas have low adoption rates from shelters. I just know rescues try everything to get dogs out of shelters and into homes. We ship to Wisconsin and New York.
Maybe it is weird, but it seems to work.
I guess I should mention that the only way these soi dogs get adopted is by shipping them across the ocean. People in Thailand typically don’t adopt dogs. So whether or not I adopt Serif he will either stay where he is or be adopted by someone else from probably Europe or america.
As far as the trend of shipping dogs it seems that where I live most of the shelters are shipping the dogs up from the south. All the ones I see on pet finder are and the place I went to visit was the same. The dogs were all from far away.
So I think for me if I adopt a dog it will be shipped from somewhere just because the odds seem to be that way whether or not it makes any sense to ship dogs around the country…
