Nali is 15.25 years old. She has slowed down quite a bit, though she still gets the zoomies almost every morning. The most dramatic change, however, has been in her incontinence. This is a dog who could, in years past, hold her pee a whole 24-hour day. Now, she can’t even hold it overnight.
My den is covered in pee pads, and they’re (sometimes usually) not enough. This in combination with my pure gimpiness has been dramatic for the people tasked with taking care of me and doing able-bodied chores.
With my newly-minted free-range status, last night I attempted to handle the late-night let-out to prevent a pee or poop situation this morning…
I had gone to bed at 10:53pm, ensuring I will get exactly 8 hours and 2 minutes of sleep. Nali keeps braving the treacherous paper-covered floor (cabinets are being painted remember), which is even slipperier than wood floors, to do some laps that I kind of hear in my almost-sleep state. The third lap brings some concern, so I wake up, put on my single shoe with its heel lifts, and limp out to the den, where in the shadows I can see the outline of a shitting dog.
I rush to the sliding glass doors and bless her heart, Nali follows me in a pooping crouch to rush outside and finish her diarrhea. I turn the lights on to find the beginnings of diarrhea and though I’d prefer to wait for an able-bodied helper to clean it up, I think I must. So I clean it and think “I’ll just throw the trash outside the door and take it out out in the morning.”
Alas, once I’ve picked up the peed-upon pee pad and runny poop trash, I decide I should indeed take it all the way to the outside trash, so in one shoe and no pants I limp to the outside trash can.
Once back inside I go to replace the pee pad where she pooped AND STEP IN DIARRHEA WITH MY BARE FOOT.
And no pants.
And one shoe.
So this is what it’s like having an old af dawg, in case you were wondering.