Kort

A young Kort doing Agility

Kort is now 11 1/2 years old.  He is not doing great.  His legs are arthritic, his feet have gone flat, he is overweight.  I am working on the weight but it takes time.  I know that getting weight off him will help with his problems. He is also unsteady on his legs.  If he turns around quickly, or sometimes for no reason, he stumbles , it sucks
.
Yesterday he fell down the last 4 stairs in the house.  He splayed at the bottom in a way I didn't know his hips could go :(  We have only one door in the house and he has to do stairs to get out.  He was already hesitant to go down them and now it takes him even longer to try.  It's not bad when I have days off but when I am working its not good.
Otherwise he is alert, eating and interacts with Brad and I and the other dogs.  I question his quality of life at times and I am sure it's not time yet.
I am scared however.  I can't lift him so I have been looking for ways to make his doing the stairs easier.  I am going to price getting the stairs carpeted to see if it is a feasible solution. I am not sure it will make any difference but it might.  A ramp is out of the question as it would be too steep and there is not enough room to make it more gradual. I even tried a harness around his rear end once but he totally freaked out so finding a solution has been difficult.

Kort has been such a good dog, we had a rough start as he was very reactive to other dogs and weird things like roller blades, but he ended up being an awesome performance dog for me.  We did conformation, obedience, agility, rally, and scenthurdle.  Its sad to see him go downhill with age.
I can't see the future but I am hoping to have Kort for quite awhile longer.

Kort doing Weave Poles