Canine Aged Care

“I reckon I can bust a myth about looking like your dog,” says Ben Deering, “because I still have all my teeth.”

At this statement, 17-year-old Chihuahua Max gazes up from the depths of Ben’s jacket, a solo tooth poking endearingly out from his bottom lip, giving him the air of an eccentric and mildly cranky pensioner.

Eight months ago, Max was facing an uncertain future.

After a serious infection raging in his teeth, most were surgically removed and Ben was handed a six-week prescription for antibiotics by the vet with the unsaid hanging in the air.

“Basically, he was written off as dead and buried,” Ben says.

But feisty little Max proved them wrong.

With his four remaining teeth, Max aka Fangtooth has become quite the hound about town, even if people don’t really know he’s there.

Tucked away in a man-bag under Ben’s jacket, he sleeps through board meetings, barely raises a stir in cafes and goes on secret supermarket jaunts.

No one notices.

As Ben says, “who is expecting a middle-aged dude with a chihuahua tucked under their jacket in a supermarket in 6am?”

“I literally talk to people for 20 minutes and they don’t know he’s there.”

Its not the first time Max has managed to outlive his death sentences. Ben calls him ‘a mini version of a failed Darwin award’.

“I don’t know if he understands he was living on borrowed time but now he’s completely co-dependent,” Ben says.

Like the Pied Piper, if Ben wants to exercise him, he just strolls to the end of the kitchen and Max will faithfully follow.

“If he’s howling, I walk in and instant silence,” he says.

“He barks at 6am to wake me up, which means either ‘I need food or I need to whiz’.”

Max might be ancient in hound and human years but Ben reckons he’s got a pretty good life.

“What are you doing today Max?  Oh, that’s right… sleeping.”

“He’d be like that old man in the retirement village that keeps to himself and everyone likes. He’d be the first to help you out but can’t actually fix anything,” Ben says with a laugh.

Ben is well aware his elderly shadow is living on borrowed time.

“It’s inevitable. Best you can do is love em, cos they’re not going to be around for ever.

“If I was a gambling man, I’d say the odds are I’ll outlive him,” he says, stroking the white-haired head.

“But I love you, old man.”