To Jenny, the sweetest canine ever to live.

My dog is slowly dying.

It may not look like it to the casual observer, but she is, make no mistake about it. Every time I come back to my parents' place, she's a little slower, a little wider around the belly, and a little grayer under the chin. She no longer has much interest in playing catch or fetch with the squeaky toys that used to enthrall her. She responds to her favorite words in the whole wide world, "You want to go out?" out of habit, but once outside, she quickly wants to come back in. If you take her to her favorite place in the whole wide world, Nottingham County Park, where people are so sparse that she can run free, unleashed, chasing (and never catching, of course) squirrels, rabbits, and birds to her heart's content, she'll still do all of those things, but will barely move for the next two days.

The meaning of "dog years," and the notion that dogs age 7 times faster than humans do, become much more poignant as they age. In November, Jenny will be nine (or 63) years old, and she shows it.

But like our favorite grandparents, she's so much more than just a reminder of a once-ebullient personality. Everything that's made my family love her is still intact. When people raise their voices, she gingerly nudges her way in, as if it's somehow her fault, brandishing her irresistible "puppy dog eyes," and lifts one paw as if to say "everything's ok," and it's impossible to stay mad at anything. She'll follow people wherever they are, just to have company (in fact, right now she just came out from another room and sat by my side upon hearing my typing). And when I come back here after some time away, nobody makes me feel more welcome than she does (it's a scene I look forward to every time: the car comes down the driveway, and she makes her usual acknowledgement that somebody's home, then she realizes it's me and, for the next few minutes, is so excited that she looks five years younger).

Watching a pet age is something I've never really had to deal with. I've dealt with death before (when I was in first grade, my grandmom, my kitten, and a friend of mine died in rapid succession, and I think I'm still dealing with that in subtle ways), but I've never had to watch time take a slow and excruciating toll on a beloved animal before, which is why I'm writing this (the fact that I can see it take place in increments, rather than gradually and seamlessly, because I no longer live here every day, makes me more aware of it as well). I'm usually the first person to acknowledge that most of what we love about pets are just traits we project on to them, and I'm the person who gets frustrated by people who feel sadder about an animal death than a human death, but when Jenny passes on, there will be real and genuine grief. And just like when a friend or loved one passes on, it will be a time for remembrance and acknowledgement.

It may be sooner, it may be later, but eventually it's going to happen. I just hope that when it does, I can say that we've made the best of our time with each other, and not taken each other for granted.

I've said it countless times in the past decade, and meant it every time: you're a good girl, Jenny.