Our poor old dog Schnoodle is getting so old. The other day I was sitting in our home office and I looked out the window and saw her just walking around and around in circles. Some sites on the internet say this may mean she has something wrong like an equilibrium or inner ear problem.

Around and around until she gets so dizzy she has to stop

Just add that to her list of ailments. It is just amazing that she is as old as she is. My mom got her from a pet shelter in early 1998 and she was a full-grown, albeit young dog. It has been kind of sad to see her as she fades farther and farther away from us. First with her hearing, then sight, then most of her teeth.

Then we saw pronounced bumps on her skin and her legs shake with arthritis. She is occassionally incontinent and moves very slowly when she first wakes up. She runs into things and falls a lot. And sometimes she pants heavily, but not always. She has a hard time finding her food and water dish, so we have to keep her leashed up right next to it and sometimes place her nose in it. She used to take her food from the dish and eat it elsewhere, but now she just chows at the bowl because she knows how hard it is to find it again.

And so that’s a good thing that she still loves to eat food…especially human food. And she would still take walks even though she runs into curbs and trees. But mostly she just sleeps. As many people have told us, Schnoodle is a chill dog. She never jumps up on people (and never did even as a younger dog), and rarely barks. She only barks to let us know she needs something…to go outside or that she needs food or water. Or maybe just reassurance that we are still there.

It is hard to see your pet grow so old and frail. We are not quite ready to put her down, but we can see that it is getting close. Britton has a Spanish translator application on his phone that talks and when we put “Poor Schnoodle” in, it said “Pobre Shno-do-lay”. So that is her new nickname. Pobre Schnoodle. But we still love her lots, even when she just walks around in circles.