Penny's From Heaven - The Golden Years

If you haven't read about the puppy I grew up with, you can read about her here. But you don't have to. Life will just make more sense if you do. Well, really just this post will.

Anyway, here is the lovely conclusion to my puppy's story. Yes, I call her puppy. She is 14 now. Puppy is a loving and endearing term, like baby, not a reference to her age. We love our puppy.

And here is how she came to live in the country.
In recent years, Penny began needing to be caged when we left the house. She used to have free roam of the house, and be totally fine. But then she started ripping apart garbage, ripping apart blankets, etc. It had to do with the fact that my Mama's work schedule changed, and Penny wasn't used to it. So we put her in her (giant) cage when we left the house. Which in itself was not terrible - she didn't mind it, and she is, after all, a dog. Dogs go in cages. Not a big deal.

But recently, with everyone's work schedule, she was in the cage for longer periods of time on certain days. And with her age, she was having more and more trouble holding her bladder for that time. Therefore, my family was coming home to messes on some days.

Besides that, her body clock was off because of this too. This was causing her to wake up at about 3am every night, needing to go out. Thus causing my parents to wake up to let her our, therefore not being able to get back to sleep, therefore severely exhausted for work during the day. This continued for weeks.

Of course, I would not allow my mama to talk to me about this. I prefer to only hear about happy Penny stories, not the ones that include her aging. I don't get to see her every day, since I live far away, so I didn't want the only things I heard about her to be sad. And then we went to visit, and we had a family discussion.

We talked about what to do. The family couldn't go on this way, on no sleep and cleaning up messes after work every day. The puppy couldn't go on this way, it wasn't fair for her either. The phrase "put down" was tossed around. My sister and I freaked out. Mama started crying because she was needing to be strong and make decisions, but she didn't want to either. I protested having the conversation all together. Everybody, just drop it. Let's talk about my baby again, how cute is she?

I really said that.

And then my Hubby raised his glass of wine, and said "We're taking Penny. End of story."
And my mama told him he was being ridiculous and he may have had too much wine. And that it just couldn't work. And my Dad asked lots of logistical questions about how it would work and if we'd be okay with it.


But he insisted. He said that I am staying home, and that she wouldn't have to be caged anymore. He said that he would let her out in the middle of the night if she needed it, because he doesn't require much sleep. He said that when the time comes for her to be put down, he would take her to the vet since he has the least emotional connection to her. He said he wanted to do it, no arguments. Penny is retiring to the Country Retirement Home.


I was too happy to say anything. I never would have came up with the idea myself, because I didn't think it was a possibility. I just didn't think the logistics would work out, or were worth being discussed. But Hubby made so much sense when he explained how everything would work - it just suddenly seemed like such a perfect solution.


I always said that I would only want a dog for our family if we could have Penny. Or a dog that was freakishly identical to Penny. So, God gave us Penny.


Now she fits in our family like she was always meant to be here. She cuddles in our house in her bed, she runs around our yard like a puppy again. And Reilly is starting to notice her, which makes me smile. Penny is so gentle and calm, and she follows me everywhere around the house. She comes in Reilly's room with every diaper change and stands next to the changing table, watching us.

We don't know how much longer she'll be around. But every day is a bonus, beautiful, carefree day in the country. We said Penny must think she went to heaven. So many smells! So much grass! A dirt road for trotting! No more cage, just relaxing and playing all day!

It makes us happy that this is how she can spend her golden days, and that we can help her. As a country puppy.

Love & PennyLane,

Dirt Road Mama