"Just because I was an abandoned child myself half a century ago, does not mean I can alleviate the mute suffering of every innocent victim in the world now. But I looked at those poor, helpless doggies with their ridiculous collars, sitting so hopefully in their porta-cages, wagging their tails at the sound of every human voice, and I wanted to die. Two in particular – a Bernese Mountain dog/springer mix and his cage mate, another springer mix, both eleven years old. The Bernese Mountain mix was too depressed to even way his tail and I thought: nobody will ever adopt these dogs, they're too old. And then I thought: what kind of person abandons a dog after eleven years?"
Buddy Lee was eight when I adopted him from the animal shelter, where he had been abandoned with a dislocated hip after an accident. They were going to put him down, but I paid to have him fixed up.
He was a wonderful dog, and we were practically inseperable. He was better behaved and more personable than the neurotic, needy Haley. Haley was also abandoned, and came to me through a friend of a friend. She's about one-and-a-half.
I'm too old and tired myself to parent an adolescent dog. If I was picking and choosing, instead of letting the watercourse way bring animals to me, I would pick an older dog.
Buddy died of pancreatitis a couple of years later. I was grateful to have been able to give him a few more years of life. He deserved them.
