The Morning My Dog Stopped Coming To The Door

I dropped my keys on the hall table on a Tuesday night in March and nothing happened.

For eleven years that sound meant Weezy. Keys on the table, nails on the laminate, and a big brown head pushed into my legs before I'd got my coat off.

Every night. Didn't matter if I'd been out ten hours or ten minutes.

That Tuesday I stood in the hall with my coat still on and the house was quiet. He was in the kitchen.

Lying on the tiles by the back door, a few feet from his bed. He lifted his head.

He thumped his tail twice. He didn't get up.

It just hit me.

I should tell you who Weezy is, because if you've got an old dog you've got one too.

He's a labrador mix. Thirty-two kilos.

He came to us at eleven weeks, when Tom and Ellie were still at primary school, and he made himself the doorman of this house on day one.

Postman, neighbours, my mum, the Amazon driver. Everyone got the same welcome.

My husband Rob used to say we didn't need a doorbell.

Walks were the other thing. Say the word and he was at the door before you'd stood up.

He'd carry the lead himself. He'd drag half a tree back from the park and drop it on your foot.

Eleven years of that.

Eleven years of being the first one glad to see me. Bad days at work, the year Rob was off with his back, the week my mum died. He didn't do anything special. He was just there, at the door, every single time. You don't think about what that's worth until it stops.

My name's Jan. I'm fifty-eight.

I do the payroll for a haulage firm, three days a week.

We've been in the same three bed semi for nineteen years, with a hallway of laminate that shows every scratch and kitchen tiles Rob laid himself the summer we got the dog.

The kids are grown and gone. Tom's an electrician two hours up the motorway, Ellie's a nurse and I see her less than I'd like.

And I've got an old boy who stopped coming to the door.

It started last autumn and I didn't call it anything at first.

He'd get up from a nap and stand there for a second before he walked. Just a beat.

Like he was checking everything was where he'd left it. Rob said "he's eleven, love" and I said I know.

By Christmas it was two goes.

If you've got a big dog past ten you know the sound I mean.

Front legs first, a push, a pause, then the back end.

Sometimes the back end didn't come the first time and he'd sit back down and have another go. He never made a noise about it.

Labs don't.

In February I came down at half six and he was sitting up in his bed looking at his front legs. Just looking at them.

He didn't see me on the stairs. He sat like that for a good while before he tried.

I stood there and watched my boy work himself up to standing.

That was the morning I started worrying properly.

We did what you do. I booked the vet.

Our vet is a lovely woman, she's had Weezy since his jabs. She moved his legs about, felt his hips, watched him walk up and down the car park.

Then she said the thing I've heard in my head every day since.

"He's eleven. For a big dog that's old. This is normal ageing. There's a bit of arthritis in the back end. There's not a lot we can do about that."

The vet, February

She said it kindly.

You've probably heard it too. Maybe from the same kind of vet.

She gave us a joint supplement and told us to keep the walks short, several short ones instead of one long one, keep the joints moving.

She said rugs down on the laminate so he doesn't slip. She said stairs are optional now.

And that was that. It's just his age.

I want to be honest about what happened next, because I think it happens in a lot of houses.

We shortened the walks. So he moved less.

So he slept more. So he got stiffer getting up, because he was getting up less.

And somewhere in there he stopped using his bed and started lying on the kitchen tiles.

And he stopped coming to the door, because by the time he'd got himself up I was already in the kitchen anyway.

None of that was one bad day. It was six months of small things, each one with a reason.

Rob said it one night in March, not unkindly. "We're just keeping him ticking along now, aren't we."

Along. That was the word.

If someone's said something like that about your dog this year, keep reading.

I wasn't going to keep him along. I wanted him back at the door.

Here's what I kept coming back to.

He's eleven. A big dog. However many years he's got left, and I'm not daft, it isn't many. And he's going to spend most of them asleep. Sixteen hours a day, Maureen worked out later. More than everything else he does put together.

He looked after us for eleven years without being asked. If there was one thing I could still do for him, it was going to be those sixteen hours.

Here's the bit I didn't see coming.

I'm in a Facebook group for people with old dogs. Mostly it's people being kind to each other.

But there's a woman in there called Maureen who's had five old dogs, she takes on the ones nobody wants, and when she says something people listen.

Someone had posted about their dog choosing the floor over a good bed. And Maureen wrote back with a review she'd copied from somewhere, a one star review of a dog bed.

It said:

"Poor dog gets up stiff and walking slowly from basically sleeping on the floor. The inside, round part where dogs body is, is completely flat. Side walls are still fluffy."

One star review of another bed, quoted in the group

Side walls are still fluffy.

If you can feel the floor, so can he.

I got up off the sofa and went into the kitchen and did it.

Weezy's bed looked fine. I'd have told you it was fine.

The walls were plump, the cover was clean, I'd bought it two years ago and it wasn't cheap. I pressed the middle and my hand went straight down to the tiles.

I could feel the grout lines through it. Rob's grout lines.

I sat on the kitchen floor next to my dog's bed and I'm not going to lie, I had a little cry.

Every single thing we'd done was for his joints. The supplement, the short walks, the rugs, the no stairs.

All of it for the legs. And not one thing for the surface those legs were pressing into for sixteen hours a day.

He wasn't choosing the floor over his bed. He'd been sleeping on the floor either way, bless him. At least the tiles were honest about it.

That's what Maureen meant. His hips had been landing on the floor every night, through a bed that looked fine from the side.

She'd put a name in that post as well. STILL.

She said it was built the other way round, the middle was the firm bit, it held her hand when she pressed it, and they put it in writing that if the centre flattens inside twelve months they send you a new bed.

Not a voucher. A bed.

This is the one we ordered →

I ordered one that night. Rob asked what I was doing and I said I'm buying the dog a bed and he said he's got a bed and I said no he hasn't.

It came in a box bigger than I expected. Round, grey, big thick walls, and the middle is the first thing you notice when you press it, because it presses back.

I put it where the old one had been.

Night one, nothing. He sniffed it, walked round it, and lay down on the tiles next to it.

I'd read enough to expect that. I didn't push him.

Night two the same. I nearly moved it.

Night three I came down at half six and he was in it. Curled up with his chin on the wall of it, the way he used to sleep when he was younger.

I didn't say anything. I made the coffee.

Morning five he got up in one go. Front legs, back legs, done.

I was at the sink and I heard it before I saw it, because there was no pause.

Just up.

Week two the kitchen tiles were empty every morning. I hadn't seen him on the floor once.

Week three I came in from work on a Wednesday, dropped my keys on the hall table, and heard nails on the laminate before I'd got the door shut.

I want to be careful here, because I know how these posts read.

He's still eleven. His face is still grey.

The walks are still short, because that's his age and no bed changes that, and I wouldn't tell you otherwise. There are still mornings that are slower than others.

I can't give him his years back. Nobody can, and anyone who tells you different is selling something. But the years he's got, I can make easier. At his age that's not a small thing. It might be the only thing.

But the getting up. That's different.

That's not two goes anymore. And whether he comes to the door, that's different.

He does.

We went back to the vet in May for his check.

She watched him walk up the car park and she said "he's moving a lot better than in February, what have you changed" and I said the bed and she looked at me a bit funny and said well, whatever it is, keep it up.

She's the one who told me there wasn't a lot we could do. She was right about the age.

She just wasn't looking at what he was lying on. Nobody was.

I wasn't.

So this is the part where I tell you what I told my sister Denise, who's got a ten year old spaniel and the same look on her face I had in February.

If you've got an old dog, and he gets up in two goes, and he's started choosing the floor, and you've said "it's just his age" more than once this year, go and press the middle of his bed tonight.

Right where his hips go. Ten seconds.

Don't buy anything first. Just press it.

If your hand stops, fine, it's his age, and I'm sorry, and you're doing everything right.

If your hand goes to the floor, then part of it isn't his age. Part of it is what he's been pushing himself up off every morning.

And that part you can change by Thursday.

He looked after you for ten, twelve, fourteen years. He never once asked what you were doing about it. These are his years now. Whatever he's got, he'll spend two thirds of it lying on something. Make it something that holds him.

Wednesday last week, keys on the table.

Nails on the laminate.

Big brown head, grey round the edges now, in my legs before I'd got my coat off.

I stood in the hall for a while.

My old guy's back to his old self. Not younger. Just not fighting his own bed.

P.S. We waited the whole winter. From the first pause in October to me sitting on Rob's tiles in March. He was basically sleeping on the floor for five months, in a bed that looked fine, because I never thought to press it. Don't lose a winter. He hasn't got that many left.

P.P.S. The twelve months is the bit to hear. If the middle goes flat they replace the whole bed. So you press it tonight, and if you buy one, you press that one too, every few months, and if it ever fails the test it's their problem not yours.

P.P.P.S. He did the whole loop of the park on Sunday. First time since October. I just had to write that down somewhere.