One day shortly before the holidays, I looked over from working in the study to see that the sun was casting a rectangle of light through the window onto the rug, and that Pundit had positioned his head and shoulders exactly in that rectangle and fallen asleep. Thank you, Pundit, for reminding us to grab the chance to sunbathe, especially in the winter, whether it means walking outside in the morning or at lunch, or just taking a minute to find and sit in the sunniest spot.

Sweet Pundit, Asleep in the Sun

One day last week, I came into the house with five kids–5!–tumbling after me, shrieking and demanding snacks and complaining and laughing and dropping backpacks on the floor. Cholula had been standing at the kitchen window by the time we entered the yard. She watched us walk up the path, and she slipped through the door to greet us as soon as we opened it. But even after our first tumultous moments in the house, during which plates and bowls were put taken from the cabinet and put onto the table and the refrigerator door was opened and closed numerous times, Pundit did not appear.

This is happening more and more these days. I walked upstairs by myself and all the way to the back of the house to find him sound asleep on the floor of the girls’room. He didn’t wake at my footsteps up the stairs or walking down the hall’s wood floor. He didn’t wake until I touched him. Then his eyelids opened, his eyes focused, and he struggled to his feet to wag his tail and walk with me downstairs to join the party.

There is something so sweet about coming up on your old dog unawares. For so long they are your eyes and ears; you count on them to greet you at the door, to guard the house, to catch wind of any trouble long before you would on your own. And then, they are not anymore. When I walk up on Pundit at these moments–and I remember walking up on Ubi just this way years ago, when she would fall deeply and purely asleep in the middle of the path in the back yard–what I feel most strongly is a sense of sacred trust. This dog has grown old in our lives and now he sleeps. The moment lays clear our bond; I want only to protect him as long as I can, and in his deep and open slumber, he trusts that I will.

I took this picture of Pundit just about 3 years ago, on our first walk after my c-section for my son, baby number three. It was a clear, cold winter day in D.C., and when I reached the woods—not far from our house, but quite a bit farther than I’d walked since my son was born—it was easy to trust that the expansiveness I felt from about getting out of the house with two dogs and a baby under my own power was going to grow, that this was the first of many walks we would take, and that although my days had momentarily shrunk to nursing, baby, sleeping, and caring for my two young girls, this wouldn’t always be so. And Pundit, as happy to be out with me as I was with him—Pundit, who’d once swam alongside me up Potomac River rapids as I ferried them in my kayak—yes, I’d once had the time and freedom to do such things—reflected that confidence right back at me—a perfect mirror of that momentary promising joy.

That was back when we still had Ubi, who must have been 17 or so. Pundit was 10 at the time, and we still thought of him as our young dog. While Ubi dawdled along with us on walks, rarely leaving our side, Pundit would charge down any ravine after a stick or a tennis ball over and over again, never revealing that he was even a second past his prime until a stiffness in his walk later that day would remind us that 10 is, what, 70 in people years?

When I was over at those same woods last week, just about three years later, I took this photo.

In many ways, these three years have taken their toll on Pundit. As my son has grown from a helpless baby to a talkative, energetic little boy who can run and hop and do a hand stand, Pundit’s physical abilities have dwindled dramatically. Whereas once I could not jog fast enough to break him into a run—he would simply move smoothly beside me in a fast walk—now I almost never take him jogging because he just pulls back, begging me to slow down. I’ll throw him a ball once in a while for old times sake, and he’ll chase it and bring back, but I know his legs can’t take that kind of back and forth anymore, and so I don’t offer him the chase very often, because he won’t stop until he has crippled himself for days. And not only has he had to adjust to one more kid in the house (not especially difficult for Mr. P), he lost his beloved Ubi and then had to deal with Cholula’s entry into his life (difficult) and who knows what he would have to say about that.

But here he is, still Pundit, more grizzled for sure, and a little balder around the eyes, which are duller with cataracts than they were three years ago But still happy to walk out in the woods, full of enthusiasm for what I and the day have brought him. Recently, with a new Rimadyl regime helping him walk, he even jogged a couple of miles with him me and Cholula, stopping often to sniff but picking up his pace again more easily again than he has for a while. He demands his dinner every day, and right on time, and when a recent influx of balloons into the house for my son’s birthday didn’t terrorize him like they used to, I was reminded of how Ubi, who had been petrified to walk through any half open door that might brush against her whiskers—she would yowl until we came and opened it wider for her—at the end of her life used her head as a battering ram to push through any opening of any size.

It is so painful for those of us who love dogs to watch them age more quickly than we do. But they can help reveal to us how to age gracefully, and with heart.

Exercise—and with vigor—as long as you are able
Leave your house eager for each new adventure, and return eager for each homecoming.
Embrace each meal.
Greet your loved ones with joy after each and every parting, no matter how short
Seek out the sun spots.
Check on each member of your family. And then check on them again.
Forgive.
Accept the love you are offered.
Shed useless fears.
Be bossy, now and then.
Stretch.
Sleep deeply and in the most comfortable spot you can find.