I had my dog Pepper for fourteen years. She was a standard poodle with a black coat that got decidedly more salt than pepper by the end. We were buddies.
She was there through my retirement, my shoulder surgery, the lonely afternoons, the ordinary mornings where nothing happened, and that was fine because she was on the couch and I was in the chair and the house had a pulse.
When she died, I felt the absence in my body. The sound of the house changed. I’d catch myself looking down before I opened the back door, checking for her even though she wasn’t there anymore.
It took a long time, but I’ve started thinking about getting another dog. The problem is that at my age, the question isn’t just should I get another dog.
It’s a question I never had to ask when I brought Pepper home: which one of us is going to outlive the other?
A dog is a 10-to-16-year promise, and I can’t make the same assumptions I made ten-plus years ago
When I got Pepper, I was in my early sixties. The timeline didn’t cross my mind. I figured I’d be there for all of it, and I was right. We had fourteen good years, and I held her at the end, and that was the deal I signed up for.
Now, I can’t make that deal the same way.
I feel good. I still drive, still cook, still walk two miles most mornings. I’m not being dramatic about my health. But I’d be lying to myself if I pretended another fifteen years was something I could count on.
It isn’t that I’m afraid of dying. I’ve thought about that enough to make my peace with most of it. What I’m afraid of is making a promise to something that trusts me completely and not being around to keep it.
Neither ending is simple, and I’ve started running both of them in my head
If the dog outlives me, somebody has to take it. I’ve thought about this more than I’d like to admit. My daughter loves dogs but already has two and a house that’s full. My son travels for work three weeks out of four. My granddaughter is in college.
I’d need to pick someone, have the conversation now, not later. I’d need to leave instructions, probably money for vet bills. Getting a puppy at my age doesn’t just mean raising a dog. It means making arrangements for a life that continues after mine ends.
But the other outcome isn’t easier to think about.
Pepper’s death took something out of me that I didn’t get back for over a year. I wasn’t prepared for how physical it was. The weight of a grief that small and enormous at the same time.
If I get a dog and it lives twelve years, I’ll be 88 when it dies. Fewer people around by then, probably. Less energy to rebuild from that kind of loss.
I’ve buried enough to know what it takes out of you, and I’ve learned it doesn’t get lighter with practice. The question isn’t whether I have enough years left for a dog. It’s whether I have room for whichever goodbye comes first.
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Every time I try to say this out loud, someone tells me to stop being morbid
I brought it up with my daughter over the phone last month. I said I’d been thinking about another dog, but I wanted to talk through the logistics first: Who would take it if something happened to me, whether that was a fair thing to ask of someone, that kind of thing.
She cut me off before I finished the sentence. Dad, don’t talk like that. You’ve got plenty of time. You’re healthier than half the people I know.
My son said something similar at dinner. You’re not going anywhere. Just get the dog.
I understand why they do it. To them, talking about who gets my dog after I die sounds like I’m inviting it closer, like saying it out loud makes it more real. They love me, and the easiest way to love someone who’s aging is to pretend the aging isn’t happening.
But to me, this is the same instinct that made me update my will and label the backs of the photo albums. It’s not morbid. It’s just the next thing on the list.
The strange part is the loneliness of it. The people closest to me are the people least willing to sit with the one question I need help answering.
So I run the math by myself, at the kitchen table, in the same chair where Pepper used to sleep against my feet. The chair still has her hair on the legs if I look close enough.
I started looking at older dogs, and that changed the question
Mortality didn’t show up all at once. It crept into the ordinary decisions. A new roof; will I be here long enough to need it? A ten-year bond; who cashes it?
Another dog; who walks it when I can’t?
I don’t think about this constantly. But it’s in the calculation now, and it makes me more deliberate about everything, not more afraid.
A friend of mine fosters senior dogs through a rescue group. Dogs that are seven, eight, nine years old. Dogs whose families gave them up or whose owners died. She mentioned it casually, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
An older dog doesn’t need me to promise fifteen years. It needs me to promise the ones I’ve got. That’s a different kind of commitment, and it’s one I can make without lying to either of us.
I’ve started looking at rescue profiles online. I’m not searching for puppies. I’m looking at the nine-year-old lab mix who needs a couch and a quiet house and someone who’s home all day.
That sounds like a life I can offer right now, for as long as right now lasts.
I also know nobody gets a guarantee, and that includes the 40-year-old with a puppy
I’m not pretending I’ve solved this. A 40-year-old can get a puppy and get hit by a bus six months later. A healthy 76-year-old can live to 95. Nobody signs up for a dog with a contract that says who goes first.
I also don’t want the fear of loss to become the reason I stop loving things that might leave me. I’ve watched people do that. They stop getting close to anything, like dogs, people, and plans, because the math doesn’t add up cleanly, and then it’s all they have left.
I don’t want that to be my story.
I still miss Pepper. I miss the sound of her nails on the kitchen tile and the way she’d groan when she settled into her spot.
Maybe that’s part of why this decision weighs what it does. She was proof that the promise was worth making, even knowing how it ends.
A dog asks you to love something without knowing who’ll be there at the finish. At 62, I made that promise without thinking twice. At 76, I understand exactly what it costs.
I think I’m going to make it again. I just wish someone in my life would sit with me long enough to admit what the question is before I do.
Editor’s Note: “As Told to Bolde” stories are inspired by reader submissions, interviews, and accounts shared with our editorial team. Details are often changed, combined, or dramatized, and our editors use AI tools in the writing process. See our Editorial Policy.
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