OLD DOGS, IT TURNS OUT, act a lot like old humans—the same deafness, grumpiness, and forgetfulness, not to mention incontinence. And since we are a society that dreads all signs of aging, it’s no surprise that old dogs get disrespected, disliked, and discarded. That makes it even harder to get them adopted out of shelters, where they can’t survive for long.
    “I just can’t imagine being old and in a shelter,” says Tammy Fiebelkorn, who has adopted older rescues for many years. When she reads about a senior found on the street, her heart melts at the thought of being blind, deaf, arthritic—and then abandoned. Shelter workers know the heartbreaking, routine scenario of a dog turned in for the crime of growing old. Ulla Pederson, who founded the kindred Spirits sanctuary in Cerrillos specifically for older animals (“On Earth as It Is in Heaven”), says the problem is not that animals grow old—it’s that we live in a “throwaway” culture that overvalues the new.
    Dogs, like people, are living longer these days, thanks to advances in medicine and preventive care. It’s not unusual to find dogs happily going about their routines at 12 or 13. In fact, New Mexico last year ranked No. 4 among states where dogs live the longest, according to a study by Banfield Pet Hospitals. (Mississippi was the worst, with a life expectancy of 10.1 years; South Dakota the best at 12.4.)

BREED: Jack Russell Terrier
AGE: 19

Frasier’s humans joke that he was a “bargain basement” dog, the last of a litter offered at half price by a breeder in Fresno, Calif. In March 1995, Ennio Garcia-Miera (now a Corrales councilman) was looking for a companion for his sons, which he found in a rambunctious, out-of-control energetic Jack Russell Terrier puppy.
    Frasier loved to chase and be chased. Everyone remembers the time he got loose in a supermarket, and what a commotion it was to catch him. But the boys loved the pup who helped the family hang together through tough times. When the brothers went off to UNM, Frasier and their other dog, Chata, went along. But it’s not easy going to college with two dogs. The day after their father’s partner moved to Corrales, the boys dropped off the two dogs.
    It was 2004, Ed Goodman recalls, and Frasier was 9. Along with Ed’s dog, Homer, they made three dogs and one human in a big house in Corrales. Ennio was still in Boston.
    Ed, who writes “Ask a Lawyer” for The Bosque Beast, was starting to grow a soft spot for dogs, and soon developed the affliction known as “foster failure.” He would rescue dogs and fail to give them up. Before long, Frasier was living with a half dozen canines and two humans, and that house didn’t seem so big anymore.
    Chata and Homer both died at the age of 13, though they were younger than Frasier. Other dogs came along to replace them. There are still seven dogs in the house, plus the turkeys and the parrot. But Frasier has learned to ignore them all.

  “He’s a little demented,” Ed admits as we watch Frasier walk in circles, sniffing the floor. “Most of the day he’s focused on searching for nonexistent crumbs.”
    Though he used to like curling up with a buddy, Frasier keeps to himself these days on his bed in the living room. It doesn’t help that everyone is bigger than he is, and two of the dogs are blind. “They tend to bump into him,” Ed says.
    Also, Frasier can’t quite make it out the doggie door, and probably wouldn’t bother if he could. So humans are always mopping up his messes. Yelling would be in vain, since Frasier is deaf. “He lives in his own world,” Ed sighs.
    But Ennio’s sons are thrilled to see the old boy have his moment of fame, especially since he was named after the sitcom character— if you’re old enough to remember sitcoms.
    Californian by birth, Frasier has never needed fad diets, yoga, or therapy. “He’s just a really happy dog,” says Ed. “He’s never been aggressive, loves people. He’s always been fairly mellow— for a Jack Russell.”

Breed: Mixed
Age: 17

Murphy’s life began badly, because he turned up at the shelter “as frightened as any animal you will ever see,” according to his human, Teri Pierce.
    Rio Rancho Animal Control thought he was 2 or 3, and clearly had been abused. The man who brought him in said the 16-pound dog was named Spike, recalls Teri, rolling her eyes. “Spike” was so scared, he came in her house and pooped on the floor, then went out in the yard and refused to come in.
    It was 1997. Teri had recently moved to Corrales from Chicago, and as part of her total life change had started fostering homeless dogs. Murphy was No. 3.
    That first day, she and her cat Sophie sat outside until he finally came in, ate his dinner, and jumped up on the couch. “He’s been there ever since,” she says.
    Murphy looks up vaguely, 17 years later. He rarely leaves the sofa anymore unless Teri picks him up to go out, and then he hobbles on arthritic back legs, a gait familiar in old men. His memory is shot, so he has no recollection of the days when he arrived here totally “shut down,” and would not set paw out of the house.
    The solution came where Teri herself finds it—hiking in the hills. In the years since they first started hiking, Murphy and Teri have climbed mountains together, including Wheeler Peak. Murphy may have short legs, but Teri always tired before he did. He would go 20 miles in a heartbeat.
    To get over his fear of humans, Murphy tagged along whenever Teri left her home office to meet with attorneys for whom she did contract legal work. He became quite popular at board meetings, she said.

Touching proof of his transformation came about 18 months ago, when Teri fostered a dog from Roswell who was “another Murphy—terrified and shut down.” Putting them together had a magical effect, she said. At a certain moment, the scared little dog suddenly decided the world was safe, and trotted off after Murphy down the ditch bank.
    Murphy was going strong until a year ago, when he had a stroke. Now he sometimes forgets where he is. His kidneys are going, and his hikes end at the mailbox. “His world got smaller and smaller,” says Teri, “and now it’s just the sofa.” But he’s not in pain, and he seems happy. He still sniffs a stranger politely and offers a sweet kiss.
    “I was terrified of the idea that I’d have to put Murphy down someday, but taking care of him, you go on the journey with them and see how it has to happen,” Teri says. It’s given her perspective on aging, she says, “because as a society we are so in denial about it.” She is calm now about letting Murphy lead the way on his final hike.
    “He has taught me a lot more than I ever thought to teach him.”

Breed: Mixed
Age: 18

Desta is a living testament to the virtues of clean living. Since the age of 2, when Jennifer Verhoog got her, she has benefitted from every natural therapy known to her human, a doctor of Oriental Medicine and half a dozen alternative treatment regimens.
    Desta means “happy” in Ethiopian, and the dog has at times been overly happy to run in the street, run away, run wild. She originally belonged to an Ethiopian woman who rescued her in Portales. Through a series of circumstances, she ended up being Jennifer’s dog in the late 1990s, moving with her to California, Colorado, Chicago, and New Mexico.
    “I confess it took me a while to fall in love with her,” says Jenn, a dog addict who once had 16 of them with her sister, another foster failure. Not only was Desta an only dog in the late 1990s, she didn’t even like being touched—a challenging situation for a healer whose practice consisted of touch therapies, which she still practices on her chickens.
    One day, Desta managed to get herself hit by cars twice in a single mad dash. “She was in so much pain, she finally let me do acupuncture, T-Touch, herbs,” Jenn says. In fact, Desta has hardly ever experienced conventional veterinary medicine or commercially prepared foods, thriving instead on a variety of holistic, high-end regimens. “She’s been an experiment,” Jenn admits.
    Anyone would call this experiment a success, from the looks of it. Not only does Desta wrestle with the two young males she lives with, she has bursts of energy that find her tearing around the house and yard, arthritis and all. Even better, she now likes being touched, and will lean her head sweetly on her human.

  That’s not to say Desta doesn’t act old. She’s almost completely deaf, and about 70 percent blind. Like other old dogs, she will walk in circles or wander off and forget where she’s going. But you would never guess the old girl is 18.
    “I try to challenge her, keep her stimulated,” says Jenn, who will move her food dish, or physically push Desta to and fro to practice balance and keep her engaged. “Her cognition, physical support (arthritis management), and staving off cancers are the three categories I work with her.”
    A home pharmacy of herbs, supplements, and other remedies that she calls “the duck tape drawer” (because it holds the family together) allows Jenn to adjust Desta’s treatments according to how she is faring from day to day. “At her age, Desta takes up a large percentage of that drawer!”

Breed: Chihuahua mix, Shih-tzu mix
Ages: 15 or 16

Not much is known about these two, since they were found, at different times, wandering the streets of Española. Considering how long an old, sick, homeless dog would last in Rio Arriba County, they clearly had been dumped.
    It’s a story that Tammy Fiebelkorn knows all too well. Since she first fell for an abused shelter dog who was 14 years old, Tammy has only adopted seniors. That means she loses, on average, three of them a year. But it also has turned her into a passionate advocate for the joys of adopting old.
    “They are already trained, with none of that hyper puppy energy—no barking, chewing, tearing things up.” Her dogs always end up calm and loving, though it might take a while to earn their trust. “Once they feel safe—Penny is a good example. She is always in your lap or next to you. I think animals feel what you’re feeling, and if you think they’re old and disgusting, they feel that.
    “These guys never get depressed, and live nice long lives.”
    The drawback, of course, is their health. Tammy’s dogs invariably have enlarged hearts, plus reduced vision, hearing, mobility, and sometimes cancer. The common thread is that veterinarians usually tell her the dogs have a few weeks or months left, and they live for years. “Good food, a little exercise, and always feeling safe and secure allows them to live longer.”
    Without people like Tammy, old dogs have almost no chance of making it out of a shelter alive. When she decided to adopt Betty, she was met by a shelter worker who drove halfway from Española to meet her, she was so clearly the dog’s last hope. Old, incontinent, with rotten teeth and a heart murmur, nearly blind—who is going to adopt an animal like that? But it’s not out of pity that Tammy rescues them. She bristles at the very idea.
    “I don’t feel sorry for them! These girls would have been put to sleep, and that’s a shame. But they’re smart and capable—I have no reason to feel sorry for them. They’re fun to be around.
    “There are little things to manage, like tinkling on the floor. So get some pee pads! It’s so little compared to what they give you.”