Seems impossible–it's been over 12 years
Hard to believe, but Charlie is now 13, the longest-lived sheepdog I have had— and even Toby is 10. In the last year Charlie has deteriorated quite a bit. He is about 80% deaf now and has gotten very wobbly in his rear quarters that I took to be late-onset dysplasia which I have encountered in a couple of other OES over the years. I took him in for his yearly heartworm test and the vet gave him what he called a "geriatric check-up". Turns out not to be dysplasia as much as neurological damage in his spine, probably due to to arthritis. While he can still walk fairly well, his feet are kind of dangly and drag around when he does. He can't run any more and if he tries to jump up on something, his back end usually collapses. I've been giving him an aspirin twice a day but lately that doesn't help much. It made me sad when the vet said not to bother with the heartworm test. He told me that even if he had a heartworm infection right now, he probably won't live long enough for it to become symptomatic. So I left with just some meloxicam to try to ease his discomfort from any arthritis, even though I was told it wouldn't do much for the neurological damage which was irreversible but didn't cause him any additional pain. But it was a sad day nonetheless just to realize my best friend is approaching his time. Strangely, when we left the exam room, there was a lady with two magnificent young sheepdogs in full coat and well groomed in the waiting room. It gave me kind of a start, like a Sheepdog epiphany of how they can fill your life—but only for too short of a time. I guess my journey on this forum has spanned nearly Charlie's entire life and a good part of mine— but by no means as much as a parade of wonderful sheepdog companions. The thing is, other than Toby, he is probably my last sheepdog (I am almost 70 and have rheumatoid arthritis and don't think I can handle another exuberant young dog). Nothing you can do about it, I guess. I'll just enjoy Charlie's companionship, and Toby's, while I can. |
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| Nice to see you! It's hard when they age. Degenerative Myelopathy (The rear end weakness) is so sad too, even more when it hits them young and the front half is so feisty but the back half doesn't work. The meloxicam may help if he also has some arthritis, much better than aspirin which you need to stop. Aspirin is generally not good for dogs. Older oes do become available through rescue from time to time! |
| We have had some great success with our older girl with a physio who does laser treatments and a few visits to the chiropractor. The physio taught us some exercises we can do at home. It doesn't stop the degeneration but it did slow things down and help with pain relief. As to never getting another sheepdog, maybe talk to some breeders. Sometimes they retire their dogs at, say, five or six years of age. So past the puppy exuberance but still with years of life ahead of them. Just a thought, as I think 70 is still young enough to have another sheepie! Hopefully, though, your crew will continue on yet. I so much wish they lived longer. |
Ron wrote: Nice to see you! It's hard when they age. Degenerative Myelopathy (The rear end weakness) is so sad too, even more when it hits them young and the front half is so feisty but the back half doesn't work. The meloxicam may help if he also has some arthritis, much better than aspirin which you need to stop. Aspirin is generally not good for dogs. Older oes do become available through rescue from time to time! Ron, So good to hear from you again. Did I ever thank you for maintaining this site all these years? It seems like there has been real fall-off of activity in the last year or two, though. I wonder why? Are sheepdogs becoming even less common? Or is it that most people have moved over to Facebook or something (which I could care less about). Yes, I have thought about getting an older sheepdog when I lose Charlie and Toby and still may do so. I have taken in rescues over 8 years old twice in the past and both of them were wonderful, devoted dogs. I thought my wife didn't think we could handle another one at this point because we find it harder to manage and bathe and keep them clipped down now since both of us have our own physical problems. But recently, to my surprise, I overheard her say to a friend "The dogs are getting old, but we probably will get another when they are gone." I guess for both of us, it's hard to imagine not having a big furry friend after living with us for pretty much our entire lives. |
| Yeah, facebook. I just can't compete with all that platform has to offer, but if I want to find info that I or someone else had previously written, oes.org is the place where I go to search. Rescue seems to be doing fine without oes.org's help, people are able to advertise their events and get lots of interest. So life goes on. |
Ron wrote: Yeah, facebook. I just can't compete with all that platform has to offer, but if I want to find info that I or someone else had previously written, oes.org is the place where I go to search. Rescue seems to be doing fine without oes.org's help, people are able to advertise their events and get lots of interest. So life goes on. Really, what does the FB platform offer that oes.org doesn't? We can exchange ideas on both. We can converse on both. We can share pictures on both. We can share videos on both. We can link to other websites, pictures, news stories, etc. on both. I guess FB does offer the ability for people to act like boorish jackasses where nobody really did/does on oes.org. So they got you there Ron.  I think people abandoned this site for FB because FB offers users a one-stop-shop way of sharing with everyone in their lives. Not just a small subset. Plus FB makes it easy for the iUsers out there. |
| I check into the forum a couple times a day and do miss the activity that used to be here. |
| Same here. It is easier to have an actual conversation here. And I feel like I get to know the sheepies and the people they own. If I don't log on here for a few days, I see what news I have missed and can quickly catch up. On facebook it is just lost. I find there was more a sense of community here. I miss it. |
CamVal1 wrote: I think people abandoned this site for FB because FB offers users a one-stop-shop way of sharing with everyone in their lives. Not just a small subset. Plus FB makes it easy for the iUsers out there. Those are two of the biggies. Plus games, info and postings from people and companies outside your circle of friends. News. Good control over notifications, cross posting into and from other platforms. Plus seamless photos and video uploading and endless diskspace too. Our photo gallery broke and diskspace utilization was getting out of my ability to pay for it. We've been using nearly 100GB of online web access diskspace. They have a working "messenger" chat, our chatroom broke a while ago. They have a nice app for mobile users. They have a like button. Although I could have added that.  They have even added animated emoticons now  , and they just tried swapping out their icons for Halloween like I used to do.They have a robust platform that's available 7x24, and a thousand paid people to support all of it. Oes.org has an ad free experience for our members  and a cup of tea mantra  , so there's that.We had the best community of people  but many left and "critical mass" -which took years to develop- was lost. At some point it became   In short, fb actually created everything I was trying to do (and then some!), only they did most of it better. I couldn't figure out a way to broaden oes.org's market to other interests, which was pretty much the reason for the "general chit chat", "cooking" "healthy lifestyles" and "entertainment" sections... |
| It's not FB, shouldn't be and I liked the format. |
| Whatever the reasons, I still enjoy coming here and do so multiple times per day. |
| Well let's try to post more often. I know this community is smaller than the facebook community, but I like that-you get to know people and their dogs a bit better. So I will try to post more often. |
| Sounds like a plan to me! At one point we had about 200 posts per day, we recently went a stretch of 10 days with no posts.  |
| I would love it if everyone posted more here. I'm not on facebook as someone mentioned if you miss a day or two the info you're interested in get lost, it drove me nuts trying to wade through posts from people I didn't know about things I'm not particularly interested in so I dumped my profile. I still come here often but post less because one, I've less time and two there are less posts to respond to. |
I second that~~~posting more....!!!!! we need to help the newbies here ~~~we owe it to the Sheepdogs of the World!!!!  Seriously...Remember that one Christmas Eve ((or was it New Years Ever......  ...I WAS young when I first posted here))) we tried to '''blow up''''' the forum????? That was a HOOT!!!!!So all of us VETERANS~~~lets plan on a great reunion during this holiday season and BEYOND!!!!!!!  |
| Sounds like a great plan!! I was feeling a bit depressed about not having all the sheepie festivities. Can we have the santa hats on the emoticons, Ron? or is that too tricky with the software issues?? I loved the santa hats at Christmas |
Mim wrote: Sounds like a great plan!! I was feeling a bit depressed about not having all the sheepie festivities. Can we have the santa hats on the emoticons, Ron? or is that too tricky with the software issues?? I loved the santa hats at Christmas You want them now? |
| I don't mind. Did you usually wait till 1 Dec? I can't remember. I will leave it up to you  |
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