This isn't a guide. It's a list of things I learned in Mabel's last year that I wish I'd known earlier. None of them are big. All of them mattered more than I expected.
The smell of your sweater on her bed.
The single most calming thing in our house, in the last six months, was a wool sweater of mine on her bed. Not a clean one — a worn one. The smell of you, on the surface she sleeps on, when she wakes confused at 3am, brings her back faster than your voice does.
Rotate it weekly. She'll know. She won't tell you, but she'll know.
Two night lights.
One in the hallway between her bed and the back door. One in the kitchen by her water bowl. The lowest brightness setting that's still visible to her cataract-clouded eyes. Total cost: $12 at any hardware store. Total impact on 3am wandering: substantial.
The water bowl on a non-slip mat.
Senior dogs slide when they drink. Their elbows give. They lose confidence in the spot, then drink less than they should. A $4 silicone mat under the bowl restores the certainty.
A bath towel folded under her front paws.
If she's started having trouble getting up, a folded towel under her front paws gives her something to brace on. The towel adds nothing physically — it's a confidence object. She trusts the texture under her paws and tries harder. We did this for the last four months.
A pee pad you don't have to worry about.
The pad next to her bed is one less thing for both of you to be anxious about. It's the smallest item in the house and one of the most consequential. It needs to:
- Not slide. Sliding is a confidence killer. She steps onto it from carpet, it moves an inch, she loses faith. Silicone backings (not plastic) hold against hardwood, tile, and low-pile rug.
- Not crinkle. Disposable pads rustle. Cognitive dysfunction is a confidence disease — the rustle alone makes her hesitate at the worst moment. Soft fleece tops are silent.
- Show urine color. A cream-colored interior layer means you can see when something's off. UTIs, kidney decline, dehydration — all show in color before they show in behavior.
We make the PuddleMat for these reasons. There are other pads that get one or two of these right. We were too tired, in Mabel's last year, to keep auditioning them. So we built the one we wished we'd had.
The bedroom rule.
Don't move her. Don't make her sleep in the laundry room or the kitchen or anywhere new. Disorientation is worse than the mess. Keep her where she's slept for years, even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard. Read The bedroom decision if you need to make the case to yourself or someone in your house.
The 4am water test.
If she wakes at 4am and seems anxious, check three things in this order: water bowl, room temperature, then the pad for color shift. 8 times out of 10 it's one of those three. Empty bowl, too cold/too hot, or a UTI showing up early.
The patience for the slow walk.
Her pace will slow. The walk that took 15 minutes will take 30. Match it. The two of you walking slowly together is one of the things she loves most about her life — don't shorten it just because she can't keep up. We learned this too late with Mabel; we cut walks short for the last two months because we thought she didn't want them. She did. We were just too in a hurry.
A photo every week.
You will look at these photos the rest of your life. Take them on Sundays. The same spot — by the back door, on her bed, sitting at the kitchen island. The same angle. You'll have a slow-motion record of how her face changed in her last year, and you'll be glad you did even though you cried while taking some of them.
The 3am floor.
The most quiet, most ordinary moment of Mabel's last six months — the one I think about most — was 3am, sitting on the bedroom floor next to her bed, hand on her back, the room lit only by the hallway nightlight, the pad rustle-free under her, both of us awake but neither needing anything from the other.
It is a quiet floor at 3am. That is the thing.
Nothing about this part of dog ownership is convenient. None of it is what you signed up for. All of it is the cost of having loved her well for the long stretch before. The small comforts are what get you both through.
Make the floor warm. Make the light low. Make the pad quiet. Bring the sweater. Sit on the floor with her when she needs you to.
That's the whole job.
— Emma