There's Something Wrong With Me

I know.... duh!

Taking Riley and Token in to get groomed. I think I'm going to ask the groomer to leave the hair on the top of his head alone so it grows out, but cut the rest of him to a summer style.. short. Wheatens do not do well in heat at all.

We took them to the dog park Sunday morning, and of course, Riley found the mud and was caked by the time we left. He really has a thing for mud.

So.. what does this have to do with my mental abnormality?

Wheatens have an average lifespan of 12-15 years. Riley is a bit less than a year and a half old. Dogs are typically considered a puppy up to 1 year of age, and Riley is just barely over that puppy mark. I'm already bummed out that he's going to die soon.

That's weird... and not normal.

....

I think one of the ways that human beings cope with the inevitable is having a relatively long life span, where we're not thinking about a 2-3 year window where you know you're going to die. Our own death is an abstract concept that seems a long way off for the most part. A 12-15 year lifespan seems really short in that context, even if, for a dog, that's a long time - and is how it's been for them since the species existed.

Pets are every bit as much a member of the family as a "real" member. If you had a child and knew at the outset that they would only live to be 15, that would be rather traumatic, wouldn't it?

Anyway.. that's how the logic of my neurosis goes.