A Dog Can Be Beneficial to Grandparents

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I love animals and would have a house full of them, if I were rich enough to hire someone to clean up after them!  What I can’t stand is losing them to old age and disease.  We had to have our little Bichon put down in October, 2007.  It was so painful that we vowed there would be no more dogs in our home.

But after a few months, my husband started giving me articles from magazines and local newspapers about how beneficial dogs can be to senior citizens.  The stories claimed that older people who have dogs as pets got more exercise, had less stress and, in many cases, lived longer than people who don’t have dogs.  Well, I wasn’t buying into it.  His sales pitches fell on deaf ears.

Then, quite by chance, I met a woman who needed to find a home for her 2-year-old golden doodle, a golden retriever and poodle mix.  I casually asked her the sex, color and size of her dog, and she went on to describe the EXACT dog that my husband wanted.  Maddie is a female, and she’s the light color he favored and the smaller size (30 pounds), being part miniature poodle, instead of the standard size.

At first, I wasn’t going to mention the dog to my husband.  But I believe that things happen for a reason, and this was just too much of a coincidence to ignore.  He insisted on going to the woman’s house the next day.  And seven months after our “no more dogs” pledge, we drove off with this dog, who was surely meant to be ours.

As it turned out, Maddie is just about the perfect dog.  She’s got a beautiful temperament, is very well-trained and absolutely adores my husband (for the first time ever, I’m our dog’s second choice, but that’s okay).  And now I know what those articles meant about dogs being beneficial to older people.  Our grown children are usually busy, and our granddaughter lives over 700 miles away.  So, although I’m pretty much always occupied, my husband works from home and gets a little lonely at times.  And that’s where Maddie comes to the rescue.

She’s his constant companion, following him from room to room.  She keeps him company while I’m in classes, running errands or seeing my friends.  And because she’s a high-activity breed, she’s gotten us out and moving.  My husband throws the ball to her, and I’m her Frisbee buddy.  But the best part is that when she senses that I’m sad about something, she puts her paws on my shoulders and lays her head down on my neck.  It’s as if she’s trying to comfort me.

It’s funny how when I agreed to adopt Maddie, it was so that she would keep my husband company.  But now, when he’s away, she becomes this Grandmother’s best friend!

Photo of Sandy Laurence©

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