Living With Aging Animals
This post is a bit of a change from previous ones. This is about our senior animal pals and what life is like as we age together and the grief that can set in because they’re aging. This is based on anecdotal evidence of my own and 20+ years of working with animals and their people.
A basic truism that animals are now living longer. According to google the average life expectancy of dogs increased from 10.5 years to 11.8 years between 2002 and 2016 and more cats are now living into their late teens and early 20s. This is in part due to diet, exercise, medical care and an increased quality of life.
With advances in veterinary medicine, the addition of holistic care and alternative modalities such as acupuncture and chiropractic, and general improvements in how we care for our animals, it follows that pets are living longer. Instead of simply being a dog, a cat, a rabbit or a horse that is kept outside and left to face the elements on their own, our animals are now valued family members who share our homes and our hearts.
Our senior animal pals offer their own special set of joys. My human clients have plenty of stories about them: one helped a young girl who stopped talking when her dad was diagnosed with cancer to start talking again; a senior dog drags her human down the street and then plays chase in the backyard. Another senior helps her human care taker understand the value of hand signals as she starts to lose her hearing.
Having more time with our senior animals brings us much joy. But there’s a flip side: because of their increased life span, living with and tending to them has gotten more complicated. This brings along its own special set of poignant moments and challenges that weren’t as prevalent a decade or so ago, such as canine cognitive disorder, incontinence and navigating the tangle of end-of- life care decisions.
Our lives change as we minister to their needs and I do not see that fact being recognized and acknowledged as it needs to be. We are affected physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally as we maneuver through this new relationship with our senior pal.
We are often left managing this as best we can by ourself or with the help of a closed circle of immediate family and friends. But here’s the thing. We’re not meant to go through this by ourselves — we are not Lone Rangers. We are meant to have a trusted supportive community standing with us, witnessing and helping us as we are on this part of the journey with our animal pal.
Life changes with aging animals
Often the transition for our animal pals into aging doesn’t happen over night. It’s gradual, sometimes insidious. You’ve had your animal pal for years, you remember them as you first got them as a youngster, and the next thing you know they are standing in the center of the living room in the middle of the night lost and alone, barking because they don’t know how to find their way back to the bedroom.
Living with an aging animal, honoring and witnessing their unique aging process is not easy. It takes courage, fortitude and support. As they age, your role as their caretaker increasingly expands. You find yourself expending more time and energy on:
- Monitoring changing medical needs
- Assisting with basic needs ie back legs giving out, elimination issues
- Adapting to the way they are now asking you to be with them, or not wanting you with them
- Increased house cleaning duties
- Monitoring medication/health appointments
- Monitoring their daily quality of life
- Increased medical appointments, which may include adding more medical professionasl
This, of course, may begin to affect and seep into different areas of your life: work, relationships, travel, social, etc. Some examples might be:
- Staying at home more because you’re the only care taker your animal pal has
- Constantly worrying about them when you are at work or running errands
- Decreased interactions with family and friends
People usually understand (to some degree at least) your commitment to caretaking for a human family member, but an animal? As much as our bond with animals has improved over the decades, people who are not animals folx have a difficult time accepting this view as animals as family, not to mention the time commitment that’s involved with that. “It’s just a dog (horse, cat, bird, whatever) they’ll be OK by themselves while you get away for the day.”
Which can make it difficult for us to keep giving the level of care we want to do without experiencing remorse, guilt, blame or a combination thereof.
A true story
This story took place about 3 years ago when my dog Max, cat Raven and I moved from a house complete with a fenced in yard to an apartment complex that had no fenced area for dogs.
That was a big change for Max — he had always had a fenced in yard where he could safely run and play.
I thought things were going well and then I noticed Max becoming more clingy than usually. He followed me around like he’s always done, but now he had to be right next to me. I mean RIGHT NEXT TO ME. Our bodies had to be touching and oftentimes he would literally block me into a space where I couldn’t move.
He started walking on my feet and standing on them. It was as if he had no concept where his feet were and that he wasn’t standing on the floor.
The situation quickly escalated from bad to worse to dangerous as I was afraid he might inadvertentantly cause me to fall or that I might unintentionally hurt him by stepping on him if I didn’t realize he was there.
It was both easy and natural for me to attribute these behaviors to his canine cognitive disorder. He had been moved from his home of the past four years and was experiencing new sights, sounds and living conditions. Not only that, but as far as I know, Max has never lived in an apartment before, but only single family dwellings. That in itself was a big change.
One night I was talking to his ‘Auntie’, a friend and colleague. I mentioned all of this to her and she became silent. Max connected with her and told her why this was happening. She told me he felt safer by my side because he’d been through a lot of change and uncertainty with the move. He was better able to handle that years ago, but now that he’s older it’s scarier.
Why am I sharing this with you?
First of all, to let you know if you have experienced or are currently experiencing something like this you are not alone. Your experience is real and it’s authentic to you and your animal pal. I see you and I believe what you’re experiencing.
Because as our animal pals age, it can be possible to miss what’s going on with them even when we are in tune together and have a long-time and honored established relationship. We expect they will respond to situations as they did when they were younger. And it is possible they are unable to do so.
Sometimes, even with the best of intentions, we miss what is perfectly obvious to our animal pal because we are preoccupied, busy, tired, stressed or we think we know what it should be — well, those are just a few of the reasons.
What do I want you to take away from this? We’re not an island, we’re not meant to do this business of life alone, doing everything ourselves. We are meant to be in connection with each other and support each other, just like Max’s Auntie supported me and Max.
When you find yourself in this position, this can help:
- Acknowledge this is a challenging time
- If you haven’t already, consider building a support community of like minded folx who ‘get it’ when it comes to understanding animals are family
- If you can, stay in contact with your animal pal’s medical care giver
I hope this encourages you to reach out for support for yourself as you are on this leg of the journey with your animal pal. Supporting yourself is also supporting your animal pal. You don’t need to shoulder this by yourself.
Janet Roper is an animist, podcaster, intuitive practitioner, non-traditional animal communicator, mentor and educator and for 20+ years has helped people restructure their relationship with animals. Two of her most popular resources are her monthly newsletter and her 5 email introductory series to her signature program Deepen. Visit her website and give her podcast True Kinship With Animals a listen.
