Darcy decline

Darcy made a huge mess in the dining room last night/this morning. From its position, we guess he was trying to make it to the kitchen.A few hours later, he was heading from one room to the other, yelped,and started really dragging his left hind leg.

Our vet has thought for some time that he was suffering from degenerative myelopathy in addition to his arthritis/dysplasia. So now I'm tracking the decline of two geriatric animals.

Poor fellow. He wants to be with us so he's hobbling from room to room. We think that we'll have to spend more time downstairs with our laptops and less time in our third floor offices, which he can no longer reach.

Mr. Darcy is 11, give or take 6 months.

"Nice house you got there -- be a shame if anything happened to it"

I don't know what kind of a publication Seattle's The Stranger is, but I think this is just a few paces short of incitement to thuggery:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=729360

EDITED TO ADD: This page is now redirected to the front page of The Drudge Report. I guess The Stranger didn't like all the hits it was getting from its notoriety on the rightosphere.

Darcy report

Despite his troubles earlier today, Mr. Darcy is still engaged with life -- pricking up his ears at words of power like "walk," for example, although he was extremely shaky on his two-block round-trip to the vacant lot where he does his business.

While he was dozing in the living room, I opened the freezer and got out a tray of ice cubes. He immediately materialized at my feet to talk like a pirate for an ice cube, although he didn't do the happy dance while doing so. He also ate his dinner like a ravenous thing.

On the other hand, when we let him out back for his evening constitutional, his hindquarters collapsed and we had to carry him back into the house. Then he recovered enough to make it up the stairs to bed, although his hindquarters were trembling all the way up the stairs and he had to rest twice.

Perhaps tomorrow will be better. He's clearly not yet ready to go, but he's not doing very well this weekend.