11-2 Getting Old

Flo sunning

I know that I'm getting old every morning when I crawl out of bed and I have a few aches and pains.  I also know that I'm getting older when I start doing something and then I forget what I'm doing. Flo is twelve years old now and she's going down hill. She spends most of the time sunning and sleeping. Her back legs are getting weak and they slide out from under her a lot. We have to help in and out of the car. We don't have any carpeting in the house and she was having trouble getting up off the floors so we put rugs all over the house to help her but many times she will lay where there are no rugs. She does a lot better getting up off the ceramic floors. She still gets excited when she wants to go with us in the car and when we come home after leaving her at home. This morning Larry asked me to take her for a little walk. So I picked up the leash and she went crazy, she really wanted to go for a walk. We walked around the neighborhood and she saw her friend Velcro, we walked for about a half hour, she wanted to walk farther but I convinced her to turn around before she got too tired. She did great on the walk. Now that we're back home she's limping a little, I feel guilty for walking her too far. A few years ago when she first started having trouble with her hips we started giving her glucosamine every day and that really helped, at the beginning of last year we had to double up on the amount of glucosamine, later in the year we had to also start giving her buffered aspirin. With this she does not normally limp but her rear hips are getting weak. She has been a wonderful dog and it is tough watching her age.

Dancers dancing the Advance tip to Brad's calling

Round dancing in between square dancing tips

In the evening Larry and I went to Sun City to square dance with the Sundancers. There were enough people for eight mainstream squares and six plus squares. It was a regular dance so Brad played one round dance song in between the square tips. After the dance Brad called an A tip because there were enough people for a square and two couples left over to rotate into the square. We stayed and watched the dancers dance. We had a super time at the dance.