Everytime I go to visit my Dad I'm dreading hearing that the dog's dead. My Dad's dog is getting on a bit being 8 years old, and it's showing. He even jokes about it sometimes. I'll ask "Where is he?" and my Dad will respond with "He's dead. D'ya wanna cup of tea?". Charming.I threw a slice of ham for him to eat and he didn't even attempt to snatch it out of the air (as dogs do!) He just sat there and and the ham fall right on his head. He made no attempt to shake it off, he just left it there. I take him for walks and he's always out of breath. He barely runs and looks like he wants it all to end. Sometimes when I fix him a bowl of water, he looks at me like "Put some crushed up pills in there...PLEASE! Euthanize me. Euthanize me NOW!" It'll break my heart when he passes away. I'm bracing myself for it now,because I know it's going to happen sooner as opposed to later.
That's the sad thing about dogs. You tend to forget that as their owners you'll often out live them. Though in the case of some shriveled old 90 year old woman with a Yorkshire terrier, my odds are on the Yorkshire terrier making it through.