Been There, Done That: Enjoying the golden doggy years

At 13 1/2, our Beagle Boy Cletus is starting to show some signs of slowing down. He's still got a voracious appetite and a high demand for a constant supply of chewsticks and fancy treats. But we're better off to just hand the treats to him. Tossing mini biscuits to him now offers too good of a chance to just hit him in the head. If he's getting a treat, it's because he was a good boy, I don't want to pelt his nugget with food.

His eyesight may not quite be what it used to. Dave thinks I'm wrong on this one. Cletus spends a lot of time looking out the windows waiting for something to go by to bark at. Then just lets fly with a flurry of barks and howls. I look to see what he's carrying on about and see nary a thing— not a squirrel or a chippie or a ferry-diddle in sight. Dave says he's got eyes like a hawk. He can see things we can't. I think they're both making things up. Cletus is fibbing and Dave is swearing to it.

Cletus and I still practice his howling about every day. I howl right along with him, as long as it's still howling. No barking. That's just noise. He can still string together quite a few syllables in his howls, although he gets a little raspy sometimes. I get him to stop, but if it's before he's quite ready, he grumbles and talks a little smack.

Cletus still likes to be by my side, although a lot of times, he's not quite matching me step for step. He's just coming into the utility room while I'm on my way back out and vice versa. He's usually right beside me on the steps, though, which will most likely just end up with us in a wad at the bottom one day.

Lately, he's been stopping for a breather on the way up one step down from the top landing. Just a second though, and then he finishes the trip. His jumping skills are also down a notch or two these days. Propelling himself from the floor to the couch or chair isn't so much a given anymore. I watched as he contemplated being up there and then walked on by and just resigned himself to lay on the floor instead.

I can't pick him up without hurting him so I taught him how to get a run at it. I convinced him to come with me over by the window and then moved quickly toward the couch and up he went.

Yay! But the real trick happened a few days later. He walked toward the chair, then turned around and went back toward the kitchen, before turning again and running up onto the chair. He remembered the trick and did it by himself. You go boy!

I know his hearing skills have diminished because he sleeps hard now. He doesn't hear me come home at lunchtime - not the car on the gravel driveway, not me coming in the back door. Dave puts his finger to his lips telling me to be quiet as I tiptoe into the living room. Poor Cletus is on the couch, out cold. Apparently, his nose still works fine because as I stand there, he starts to rouse from his slumber, awakened by his sense of smell. Face all smushed up on one side, all groggy and fuzzy-headed. And then he lets out one big howl, because Mommy's home. Or he's yelling at me for being gone in the first place, it could go either way.

At night, Cletus abandons his post of forever at my side and goes upstairs to bed with Daddy around 9 p.m. But he's still totally at the mercy of his nose. Nine o'clock is when I start cooking for the next day. I recently made a big pot of vegetable beef soup that drug poor Cletus straight out of bed by his nose. He came into the kitchen, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes and clearly irritated to have been awakened at such a god-awful hour.

He howled at me until I gave him some soup, although he could have handled it with a little more class. He dumped out the bowl on the kitchen floor and then licked up every drop. Cleanest spot on the whole floor.

Cletus may be an old guy in most respects, but the big snowstorm we had recently really brought out the little kid in him. He shoved his nose through the snow as he walked along looking for the perfect spot, coming in with a little pile of snow on top. He took bites of snow while he stood and tinkled and sometimes just rubbed his face in the snow, back and forth. I have no idea what that was about, but it looks like he's enjoying his golden years.