The New Normal

This morning Chaco, Hattie, and I paused at the park several times for Chaco to sniff the trees. I looked behind us to see a woman coming up– running– with her two dogs. I looked down at Chaco whose back legs slipped out behind him (I call it “the splat”) and watched him as he kept sniffing, his hind legs almost glued to the grass underneath him.

It’s not realistic but I long to have the days back where Chaco and I ran through the park, him pulling me, and the days when he could run three miles with me.

But after his back legs gave out last week, I worried we were at the end of his life and it was time to let go. I could sense his fear, too. My independent dog who is usually is off in the bedroom snoozing or in the backyard wandering around, clung to my side in my office, a place he has never spent any time in since we moved back to Albuquerque nearly two years ago.

By the time we got to the vet two days later, him taking some Rimadyl I had for Nestle as well as a joint supplement, I felt better we weren’t quite at the end. But as we left the house, Chaco looked scared. And when we returned home, knowing it wasn’t quite time yet, everyone (Hattie and Gidget included) looked relieved.

It’s a new normal though.

For the nearly thirteen years I’ve had Chaco, as long as I’ve been in town, he’s gotten at least a walk a day, and while we lived in Illinois (where the photo was taken in 2013), he and Gidget got a second walk together in the afternoon. Now he can make it around the park but not as well as he used to, needing to stop and doing it by pulling to sniff a tree.

We bonded over our walks and eventually our runs. Chaco partly came into our lives as a way for my now former husband to get some exercise because he was supposed to quit smoking. When neither was working, I took to walking Chaco and then worked up to running him. It was our time each morning, even as three more dogs joined the family (and then losing Daisy and gaining Gidget).

I often forget that many dogs don’t get the exercise that mine do daily. And while I watch Chaco and how slowly he moves (although he was very happy to wander away from me at the park in the snow on Sunday), I have to remember he still has life to live. He can still get around, he is still happy (although not so much to wear the socks that give his back legs traction).

It’s a new normal. A new routine. He’s still here and it’s up to me to be okay with this change and what time I have left with him.