I was walking with Dede, Mayor of the dog park (or so I’ve dubbed her) earlier this week, along with her Sadie, and, of course, Kemba. She was telling me about a health scare she’d recently been through with Sadie. (Thankfully, it turned out all right.) “How old is Sadie?” I asked. “Ten,” she answered. “Kemba?” I told her Kemba was nine-and-a-half — “just about my age.” I was, of course, using the standard formula of multiplying a dog’s age by seven, to translate to human terms. By that measure, Kemba would be a little over 66, so I’m still a good bit his senior — but let’s not split hairs.
I mentioned Kemba’s arthritis, diagnosed about a year ago. He just recently had a flare-up, which we handled with his Rimadyl tablets. Again, kind of like me, with my new hip, chronic neck pain, and occasional sciatica. Though I like to think of us both as forever young — Kemba is constantly mistaken for a puppy, and most people tend to guess my age as younger than I am — the truth is, we’ve both probably lost a step. Or two.
Though I keep up with my biking and hiking and skiing and gym workouts, I do find myself missing the days of running (gave it up four years ago), tennis (10 years), and hoops (about 15). And though Kemba can still kick the butt of sprinters half his age, I wonder if he thinks back to when he wanted to fetch 24/7, was constantly nudging me for the next activity, and would plunge into the ocean waves (no matter how rough) or an icy mountain pond (no matter how freezing) without testing it first.
I’m not complaining, though. For a couple of not-quite-puppies anymore, we’re doing just fine.
YOU CAN ALSO FOLLOW BEAGLE MAN, KEMBA, AND RICKY ON FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM.
You both seem like puppies to me!
Love it!