It’s never too late to adopt a companion

I have an elderly friend who has gotten a puppy. And that has made all the difference.

Even though she still lives independently and is involved in activities in her retirement community, her home is too quiet. She nursed two husbands through terminal illnesses and has outlived her siblings and children. She has no grandchildren.

She is lonely. Her niece insisted she get a puppy. She resisted. After all, a woman of her age taking on the responsibility for an animal – does she even have the stamina? But her niece assured her that if it didn’t work out, she’d take the puppy. There were no reasons and no obstacles not to give it a try.

So Buddy the long-haired miniature dachshund arrived at my friend’s home. At first it was bumpy. House training and keeping up with the antics of a tiny bundle of canine energy can – and did – upset the tidy, orderly routine of the household. More than once the niece received exasperated calls about Buddy, and one time he actually was taken away. But then in the stillness that followed, my friend thought that maybe she should give it another go, and so she did.

A year has passed. Buddy sleeps nicely in his crate at night. They go out for walks. He gets a special doggie treat in the afternoons. He lies on the floor with one of his legs positioned over her foot as my friend sits watching the morning news on TV. She talks to him during the day. They are buddies.

Oh sure, it’s not perfect. He still gnaws on unapproved items, has accidents in the house and can be a bit demanding. But when she goes to her special chair and gives him the special signal, Buddy comes running from wherever he is and launches himself up on to her lap. He makes himself comfortable and she strokes his fur. It’s quite a lovely communion between them. And she isn’t so lonely any more.

There’s a lot of literature out there about the therapeutic effect of dogs, and not just for seniors. A visit from a dog can help lower blood pressure, stimulate the brain, increase socialization, all of that. Another friend of mine has a trained therapy dog, a golden retriever, that she takes to an Alzheimer’s unit at a medical facility and to a veterans home. What happens with the patients, she tells me, is just magic. It’s not, as they say, rocket science, but once you see it in action, you will be a believer.

I suppose it can happen with cats, too, but not being a cat person myself, I can’t say. I’ve always thought cats way too independent and arrogant to care that much about the humans in their lives. (I expect computers are being fired up at this very moment by cat people who are going to try to convince me how wrong I am. OK, give it a shot, but I’m sticking with dogs.)

Even so, I am impressed with the difference in my friend’s life and have been thinking more about the special nature of the human-animal bond. So I asked Gail Mackie, executive director at SpokAnimal, about it, especially as it relates to older people. She witnesses the difference pets make to seniors every day through the adoptions that take place there – though she does offer a caution about seniors taking on puppies.

“Puppies are a lot of work,” she said, “and most seniors come in looking for small or medium sized dogs. Grown dogs are already house broken, are temperament evaluated by us and are a known quantity. Energy and activity levels are important to gauge. We can help match the right dog with the right person.”

Makes sense to me, but I do know of one case where the puppy scenario worked out – with a few glitches – quite well.

I had no idea how organized the effort is for matching older adults with four-legged companions. For example, I learned that the Pets for Seniors program in Spokane, sponsored by the Purina company each year since the late 1990s, provides $50 toward the adoption of a pet for a person over age 60. This year the annual $5,000 allotment was exhausted by the end of August.

Mackie suggests seniors should have a contingency plan in writing. Who will care for your animal if you become unable to or if you die? “Recently some people came in from Tennessee with the 6- and 8-year-old dogs of an elderly relative who died here,” she said. “They couldn’t take the animals, and no plans had been made for anyone else to take them. So, of course, we did.”

Somewhere out there I expect there is a senior citizen longing for the kind of companionship these dogs could provide. They just need to find each other. Like with my friend, it could make all the difference.