The last few weeks I have been overcome by a melancholy feeling. It is now since December that I had to say goodbye to my great friend Rowan, and I still miss him every day. Fortunately, I had a lot of comfort from the presence of Myla and Lana. But in recent weeks I have also noticed more and more from my little sweet Myla that she is really noticeably getting older. My little girl is no longer as fanatic as she has always been. She doesn't pull my arm a meter longer during the walks, and she's generally much calmer than she's ever been before. She is tired earlier and sleeps much more.
Where previously a walk of an hour and a half was barely enough, she is now noticeably satisfied after fifteen minutes… she wants to continue, and also walks for an hour, but then you notice the rest of the day AND the next day that it actually was too much for her.
Myla is now 11 years old and for a Malinois she is of course also quite an age… it's just as an owner, you don't want to believe that she is also in the autumn of her life.
And the weird thing is that the older a dog gets, the more you love them. You know exactly the characters, you know exactly what to look for and you can read and write with them, so to speak. The dog knows you and has adapted to a large extent to your behavior, knows what you expect from him / her and often acts accordingly.
Where you spend a lot of time raising a young dog, you don't have to think much about that with an older dog that has been with you for a long time. Which means that much more time remains to consciously enjoy ... It all goes without saying with an older dog. Only by the time you start to notice that, unfortunately you often see the first signs that your buddy is getting older. And by the time you're ready to acknowledge that ... you can say the dog is in the autumn of life.
I don't want to think about it at all, and just continue to enjoy everyday things now that it is all so easy, while it is still possible. But sometimes ... when something just happened like yesterday. Then you are put back into reality. Where you have to recognize that your dog is really getting older. And sometimes, very sometimes that melancholy feeling surprises me.
I certainly don't think the moment will come soon when I have to say goodbye to her. But at the same time I also know that the moment when I will also have to let my girl go is closer than I would like.
But a consolation is that I always give my dogs everything they could wish for. They will never be short of anything in their far too short lives. And every day we consciously enjoy everything we can do together ... whether that is hyper active, in a quiet way ... as long as we do it TOGETHER, we consciously enjoy it.
