I curently have a 15+year old mini-Schnauzer who no longer gets around all that well. We are dreading what we know is coming greatly.
It amounts to losing a member of the family.
Yep... Ol Chewy is getting on... He's maybe 10 or 12, which is right about on the 'use by' date for an Ozzie.
It's coming, sure as God makes little green apples, a doom rising on the horizon... And I am right on the cusp of getting another so Chewy can help raise him up, and so the pup can help Chew along (he's starting to go blind and deaf)... You've been around cow dogs I'd reckon, and you know they learn best by osmosis (knowledge handed down by an elder dog) to a large degree...
It should not be a hard decision, but for the first time in my life, I am considering a house without a dog... A strange thing to me, as I have never been longer than a couple weeks without one in the course of my whole life.