Late Saturday morning

Wow, I slept in this morning, nice. It is overcast again which I love; gives one more time to do fun things with the dogs without dying from the heat. This was a crazy hectic week and I'm thinking that gardening is at hand. First thing on the agenda though is to get the dogs out. Luke is patiently awaiting his run with Dad and the girls will go out with me.

Speaking about dogs; I was having a conversation about the age of our dogs the other day with my son, he was astonished at Luke's age. Even living with him all this time he still considered him to be a young'n; it is hard to wrap the age of almost "nine" around him. But as my own dogs age I am really seeing that age is simply a number in your head and the true age is in the beholder. I meet so many people who consider 7 or 8 year old dogs to be old. "Oh she's almost eight," spoken in a downtrodden manner; almost like it is time to give up on the poor ole thing.

Our dogs are not here with us as long as we would like; imagine if we could have our dogs as long as the rest of our family. How wonderful would that be? But as canine guardians we must come to terms that it simply is a fact that they will spend a fleeting portion of our life with us. But as long as they are here; don't count them out; don't be treating them older than their time. In my mind a dog is not old until they are 10; I just won't allow the thought into my mind. Of course different sizes and breeds have a huge difference as to how fast they age. But by keeping your dog active and not giving into the "old dog" idea your dog will be alot healthier and happier.

I remember taking Luke to the vet and having them tell me that we could go with the senior package for him. What???????????? It had not even crossed my mind that he was a senior, even at the age of eight Luke was not a senior in any way shape or form. There are things that change slowly over the years, heck we see changes in ourselves as we age all the time. But putting your dog into the "old" category before their time shortens the good years so let them be the puppy for as long as they can be.