Aging

Well... aging is something we all go through... soon or sooner, it never stops. What i'd suggest you to do is trying to focus on your partner and to give him lots and lots of love, also to make nice moments with him, they don't need to be purely sexual, i know it sucks when they start to lack about it, but that's how life works, you start to get more and more slow... just show him love and he'll love you all his life
 
She was bouncing that morning as we got in the car. she played and did all she did when she was 2 years old... but she had a cough and glands swollen. when she turned 6 i knew there was a chance she could die any day as she was a giant. she made it to nearly 9, the cough was lung cancer , a surgery wound did not heal and the glands gave her issues with food and the vet did not want us to take her home as she could suffer more and more overnight. we have her cremated, her box of ashes will be om the shelf with the others. i feared her dying as she was my crutch in life, i had my days of being drunk and the cuts i made will heal. next year we might get another puppy, a mastiff.
 
Sorry to hear, but this is a reality we all have to face. The critters in our lives are perishable. Grieve as you need to, but in the end, memories are all you can take from them. Thorns make the Rose. Short lives make our Critters. If they had similar lifespans to ours, I rather doubt we'd love them half so much.
 
I'm dealing with a similar situation with my 13yo setter. I spend as much time with her as I can help her as much as possible to stay comfortable. Its hard there have been days where I almost drown in sorrow for what she has gone through and what she is currently going through. But you got to stay physically and mentally strong for him cause that is what our mates need. Don't give up until they are gone 😢 because if it were the other way around they'd be there on our death bed comforting us.
 
I try not to think about it but it's hard not to. I dread the day when I lose my dog. it makes me cry some times to think about it. and I also need to think about breaking the habit of looking at beastiality to. I don't want to be like that with my next dog!!!
 
We do live longer, so we love them for their entire life and then adopt another. We can make their lives very happy, healthy and enjoyable as they do for us.
 
It's a terrible situation. Overall track down his good days and his bad days. When the calendar is more bad than good days... start thinking about it.
Another thing that helps deciding is, thinking on the top 5 things that he likes to do. Like, barking at the mailman, sleep belly up, etc. When he stops doing 3 of them, then think about it.

I personally kept my old dog too long, she was completely disabled, and I kept her on painkillers too long. Just to be able to hung her, smell her, pet her every day, it was just selfish of me.
Everyone suffered with the delay, the other dogs could had better vet care but hadn't, due to the expenses, and the other dog that I adopted later, spent unnecessary months at the shelter. My human partner, is now done with more dogs too, because the process is a bit tiring.

Also, make sure that you do everything right by him, or you might end up like me, needing another elder dog right away, just to re-try everything to make things well "this time".
 
Mi labrador negro tiene ahora 11 años y me entristece que haya envejecido tan rápido. Perdió interés en una relación sexual hace algún tiempo, pero ahora su salud se está deteriorando. Me rompe el corazón.

¿Cómo lidias con el envejecimiento de tu pareja animal?
Debiste tener un cachorro sustituto cuando notaste que tú labrador perdía vigor , . Checa la historia del Noruego y sus Husky en vice
 
Animals are not sex toys. They have feelings. They can love, they can be angry...you don't just get a backup when your family member gets old.

Total agreement, one cannot replace a loved companion, but one can prepare for the future. I tend to get a pup at set intervals; I find having others to care for can be the thing that gets me moving when I don't want to and to help me through the day while I process the grief. It is always a traumatic event when one passes.
 
Total agreement, one cannot replace a loved companion, but one can prepare for the future. I tend to get a pup at set intervals; I find having others to care for can be the thing that gets me moving when I don't want to and to help me through the day while I process the grief. It is always a traumatic event when one passes.
That I can absolutely understand. I was more referring to the comment in spanish about having one on stand by to have pn standby.. Same guy posted a thread that translated to something like "when one dog gets old when should you get another dog to continue staying virile with".. I don't remember the wording completely but it was enough to make me remember him.
 
This aspect is, to me, the worst part about being a dogzoo. You know it's going to happen and that due to the disparity in lifetimes it will keep happening. It doesn't really get any easier, but the first seems to be the worst and hopefully you learn some ways of living through the grief which makes surviving future loss a tad more manageable, but it doesn't seem to help make the loss itself any easier.

I think it's important to stay engaged with the community for support. There was a time that I had lapsed and drifted away from the community so when it happened I was alone and it was a harder road than it should have been. We don't want to wallow in our loss, but it's not healthy to bottle up the loss of a partner and pretend to the outside world that *everything is fine* when on the inside your world has collapsed.

Another hard part is figuring out quality of life and making end of life decisions. These are hard to make and seem to almost always involve a lot of self-blame and second guessing after the fact, but when there's nothing left but misery it can be a kindness.
 
It's not nice to see he is 14 now and getting on his legs are not the best cant really mount anymore even though he gives it a good go. I don't think there I long left fs. My other dog is a 14 year old female just been told she has cancer and they can't operate so no luck here. I can only take of the happy 14 years we had together.
 
Sorry to hear that @Dead_aim , it happens but it always sucks. 14 years is a good run, shows you provided them with good care.
 
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