About a week or so ago, I noticed that Cooper was walking kind of funny, and that he had this oddly strange hump to his back. I had noticed back in January that I could feel the little nubbins of his lower spine through his coat, something that I hadn't been able to do before. I thought that maybe he was just a little under weight, given that his eating habits have been erratic, at best, since Brie passed away last fall. Turns out that he's got spinal arthritis, a degenerative problem that happens to pretty much every being who lives to be old.
Since noticing the nubbins in January, I hadn't really seen a change in him. We still went for walks, he still tore around the house like a madman, we had even embarked on a few long, off-leash walks with some friends and their dogs. He's actually been more active in the past few months that he had been in the past few years. But then a week ago, the humped back showed up. And he wasn't sleeping through the night, waking me up frequently to change positions, jumping on and off the bed, that sort of thing. I knew it was serious when he started to whimper while trying to find a comfortable spot to lay. This dog does not whimper in pain. Ever. He's tough as nails and he's proven to be a pretty resilient pug. So of course I started freaking out. Not Cooper. Not my little buddy. Not yet.
All I could think about as I watched him struggle to get comfortable was the last year we spent with Brie. Watching her shuffle from place, gradually losing function in her back legs. I maintained then and I still do to this day that she was not in pain...she just wasn't neurologically intact. Which isn't to say that she wasn't uncomfortable sometimes when she couldn't get her legs under her to stand, but I never got any indication from her that her condition was painful for her. Stressful, yes. Painful, no. So this situation with Cooper is different. Functionally, he's still very much intact. But he's in pain. So now we're once again dealing with a degenerative change that we weren't prepared for and haven't been through in the past.
I think his condition is relatively minor at this point, and I'm hoping that the daily anti-inflammatory and joint supplements will help to give him some comfort and to keep him active. He seems to be doing better after a few days on the meds, so that's reassuring. He's still slow to mobilize in the mornings and he still seems to have a little trouble with finding a comfortable place to lay, but there's no more limping and no more whimpering. I'll take it.
Since early 2013, I've put down one dog a year. It's stressful and heart breaking and while I know that death is a part of life and that our little buddies have shorter lifespans than we do, I still can't help but think about it. I'm hopeful that we can make it through 2015 without a death, but I'm being rational about it too. Cooper will die someday. He just will. He could die tomorrow by antagonizing the wrong dog, he could run out into the street and get hit by a car, he could live another 5 years and die peacefully in his sleep of old age (fingers crossed for that one!). My job is to keep him as happy and comfortable as possible for as long as he has left in this world. I can do that. :)
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