George Is 14 Today

George is our basset and he came home 10 years ago today. The vet and the people we got him from both said he was "about 4" so that makes him 14 today (I designate their gotcha day as their birthday if I don't know when it really is). He sleeps a lot and he doesn't get around as well as he used to, but he's in good health otherwise and he had macaroni and cheese for supper to celebrate. They don't get a lot of table scraps anymore because they were both getting too fat, so that was a big treat. He had a little stroke about a year ago but he recovered almost completely and the vet just saw him in December and said he's doing very well.

He belonged to a family with a boy about 9 and a female basset who was in heat. Naturally George wanted to, um, meet the female, so instead of getting one of them fixed, they gave George away, and he was that little boy's dog. He still alerts whenever he sees a boy that age on a bicycle, and the boy called about a week after we brought George home to see how he was settling in. It took George quite a while to get over missing that kid -- he wanted to go outside constantly, and he'd head straight for the car. It couldn't have been more clear: It's been a nice visit but I'd like for you to take me home now.

He loves us now but he sure didn't want to stay at first. When we did take him somewhere in the car, he'd get so excited and run back and forth in the back seat, until he realized we weren't taking him "home." Then he'd just sit down and gaze sadly out the window.

#1 Siobhan

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