The Joy Series: Old Dogs

On Westley, sleep zones, and the love that comes with being chased

A couple of weeks ago, Westley — our ancient standard poodle — stopped putting any weight on his front left leg. We still aren’t sure why. He doesn’t seem to be feeling any pain. The vet took X-Rays and couldn’t find any structural issues. We’re supposed to go take him to a doggie neurologist this week. It’s possible he suffered some sort of stroke. It’s also possible that this is just the natural consequence of Westley getting older. He turns 14 in July. Pup math says that’s 98 in dog years.

Westley now spends his time standing on three legs and occasionally limping to a new spot to sleep. That was always his favorite thing in the world — scouting out new sleep zones. He would sneak around the house and find some hidden place to sleep on one of our three floors. Sometimes he’d be on the third floor behind a couch. Sometimes he’d be in the little closet off the bathroom on the second floor. Sometimes he’d be so well hidden that we couldn’t find him at all, and we’d call out his name, and after a good while, he’d just appear, fully content that he had won the game he was playing.

But he can’t do stairs now. Well, he can still awkwardly climb up stairs, but he can’t go down; this apparently has more to do with his poor eyesight than his leg issues. In any case, he refuses to be carried, so we have had to block the stairs with a bench. He so desperately wants to go upstairs to find a place to sleep that he occasionally will press his head against that bench and try to move it, like he’s Hercules trying to push aside a boulder in front of a cave. This morning, he moved it just enough to sneak upstairs. Getting him back down was one heck of a chore.

Without the stairs option, Westley instead finds different spots around the living room to sleep. We’ll find him sleeping behind the couch, behind the chair, behind his kennel, by the guitar nobody ever plays, by the side door.

You can tell this isn’t as satisfying for him. We always find him.

Other than the stairs thing, though, Westley seems content. Happy, even. Age suits him. He has always been an old soul. When he was young and spry and full of energy, we’d take him to the backyard and try to get him to fetch tennis balls. He toyed with us. Sometimes, he’d run after the ball and get it, but then he would just stand on the other side of the yard and make us come to him. It was like he was saying, “Who’s playing fetch here, buddy?”

And sometimes we’d throw the ball, and he’d just stand there and look at us with those big eyes and an expression that either said, “Why did you do that?” or “That ball looks really far away.”

Instead, he liked being chased. That was always his jam. I sometimes think about the scene in My Best Friend’s Wedding, when Dermot Mulroney (or Dylan McDermott) is chasing after Cameron Diaz, and Julia Roberts is chasing after Dermot Mulroney (or Dylan McDermott), and Rupert Everett says to Julia Roberts, “Who’s chasing you?” I think about that scene because love really is, at least a little bit, about being chased.

Anyway, Westley has always thought so.

We don’t know if he will ever get feeling back in that left leg. Sometimes, particularly when he really needs to do his business, he will almost gallop. Other times, he will stand in place for a half hour with that left leg in the air, as if he’s frozen.

You might ask: How is this part of the joy series? This seems very sad. And it is sad, but not really, because Westley is not sad. He’s exactly as he’s always been. He’s stretched out right now at my feet, sleeping the sleep of angels, and every now and again, he will look up at me in that familiar way as if to say, “Come on, man, you should have finished that writing by now.”

And before too long, he will pop up and walk over and bump his head into my leg and demand that I chase him. The chase will only be a step or two. But it will be long enough to know that he is loved.