Well friends, this past week I hit a major puppy milestone – I turned the big 1-0 !!!
Please forgive this blurry photo, someone cannot even manage to sit still for 3 seconds to capture the greatest day of my life.
As all rescue pups like me will tell you – my age is really just an approximation. For some unknown, completely unscientific reason, when the vet at the rescue shelter first examined me back in July 2012, he branded me as three years old. I assume he chose three because of my unique combination of beyond-puppy maturity combined with my young, stunning good looks. So start with the vet’s estimate of three then add seven years of sweet bliss with my family … TA DA!… you get TEN.
Suddenly I’ve been catapulted into the double digits.
So much can happen in the blink of an eye.
The big 1-0. Or if you must convert to dog years, the big 7-0. Which is why starting now, I officially declare to never use dog years again.
Did you know that even at Party City, where you can literally buy 50 different colors of oversized sunglasses, you cannot find any decorations for a 70th birthday party? Recently I found out they stock decorations for 30th, 40th, 50th, and 60th birthdays in every ridiculous theme you could imagine, but apparently, no one expects you to celebrate when you become a septuagenarian.
Well surprise Party City, but this old geezer is definitely celebrating.
Now this is how you pose like a pro, little man.
To be honest, I’ve never understood why humans are so obsessed with NOT aging. I mean they waste years of their lives – exercising, Botoxing, scrubbing their faces with anti-aging serums, dying their grey hairs, even transfusing younger blood into their bodies. Not to mention, drinking from the elusive Fountain of Youth and praying to the gods of perpetual immortality.
But all the while, the clock keeps ticking and the years keep adding up.
Good news for me… the more wrinkles puppies have, the more humans love us! Just ask Pig the Pug.
Unlike these silly humans, I’m looking forward to finally reaching the age where it’s considered socially acceptable to do nothing.
For the past 10 years I’ve been longing for the day when I can publicly shirk all of my stress and responsibilities. And I know you’re probably all thinking… “Oh that busy Bacon, he’s such a work horse, he’ll never stop working.” But I’m here to tell you, I plan to embrace the retirement lifestyle.
What an epic photo this could have been.
In fact, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, Googling articles about How to Retire Rich and Top 10 Things to Do When You Retire. I think I’ve created the perfect retirement plan for me and I’d like to take this opportunity to share it with you, friends.
Is he still there?
1.START A BLOG - CHECK.
Bacon Pro-tip: Always start a To Do list with something you’ve already accomplished. BOOM. You’re a born winner. Then instantly give yourself a quick paw on the back. This is a foolproof way to get the momentum moving forward. I can already tell I’m going to kill it at being retired.
On a side note, as you all know I’ve been writing this blog for awhile and love sharing my adventures and salty opinions. Unfortunately, over the past few years, my posts have been more sporadic. I blame the wild child also known as my brother, Benjamin, who always demands to be co-featured in these photos. And it pains me to admit this on the record, but recently he’s been starting to grow on me (a little). Maybe it’s because he suddenly realized I too enjoy a nice dinner of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese or perhaps Campbell’s Mini Raviolis. Or maybe it’s because he started wearing that amazing BACON’S FAN CLUB t-shirt.
Hard to say for sure, but hypothetically, I would not be opposed to the idea of a Fan Club… wink wink.
Still??? Come on.
2. DROP MY ACTIVITY LEVEL - Now I’ve been gradually decreasing my activity for a while. Back in Boston, I used to walk miles around my neighborhood Beacon Hill every morning and night, uphill both ways. If you’re from Boston, you know this is not an exaggeration. Obviously, I did not do this by choice but out of love for food, err, I mean my parents. The minute I moved to the flat lands of the midwest I quickly embraced what you might call the midwestern lifestyle. Now I refuse to walk up ANY incline whatsoever. My current level of activity is walking either 4 houses to the left or 3 houses to the right. I consider this pretty good progress, but I’m predicting that if I throw in my new geriatric age and a few senior ailments (my current favorite is arthritis), I can definitely get this down to nearly zilch.
While visions of crispy, bacon strips danced in my head.
3. TURN MY EATING UP A NOTCH - Less time suffering through the daily grind of work = more free time to eat whatever my little Boston Terrier heart desires. It’s as simple as that. Now I just need to get my own UberEats account so I can fulfill my carnivore potential morning, noon, and night. Anyone know a dog walker that also specializes in perfectly grilled medium-rare filets?
You might say to yourself, Bacon, haven’t you already consumed enough human food to last a lifetime? Well friends, the simple answer is an enthusiastic NO. I recently went to the vet for my annual anxiety attack a.k.a physical and found out some very exciting news. Turns out I weigh almost the exact same weight at age 10 as I did the day I was adopted. My initial reaction was anger - I mean WTF have my parents been lying to me about for the past 7 years. Pretty sure I could’ve been eating bacon every single day, MOM. But after my anger subsided, I realized what an opportunity I have now. I mean no one in her right mind would expect a pup to get this old and not gain at least a little weight. So consider this my hall pass to really pack on a few pounds.
Oh I have some thoughts to unleash about this photo shoot…
4. UNLEASH MY TRUE INNER THOUGHTS - (pun intended). Look everyone knows when you’re old, you can say whatever you want. You want to be downright rude to a stranger? Go for it. Someone asks you to volunteer and you have absolutely zero interest, do not hesitate to say no. You finally have the courage to tell Bernice she looks ridiculous in that leopard print collar and everyone can tell she’s trying to look 2 years younger? Now’s the time. Cause once you hit a certain age, you can speak with abandon. There are absolutely no repercussions. Or so they say, but I’m willing to put this theory to the test. The best part about this new found freedom of offensive speech, is that even if everyone knows what I’m saying is completely inappropriate, they’ll just toss it up to old age.
“Oh that poor Bacon, he’s completely lost his wits. I swear, he used to be such a thoughtful, polite puppy.” Ha. Jokes on you, suckers.
Bacon Pro Tip - if you turn your head away from someone, they usually assume you can’t hear anything they say and stop talking. It’s magical.
5. LOSE MY HEARING, SELECTIVELY - At this point, my parents are convinced I’ve gone completely deaf. Awww, another sign of old age. Boo hoo. But the question is… how can they really tell? They can’t. All they know is most of the time, I completely ignore everything they say and continue to go about my business as usual. I started doing this around the time my baby brother was born. Remember one of my earlier posts about the tiny baby and his disproportionately large noise level? Back then, I started selectively blocking out his crying and basically any noise he made (unless it involved eating). I promise this was not an act of neglect, but one of survival on my part. Essentially this was the only way to maintain any ounce of sanity in those early months. But after mastering the art of selective hearing, I realized being partially deaf is actually quite freeing. (No offense to any of my fellow pups who actually have hearing issues.)
So I just never stopped. Nowadays, I do such an impressive job ignoring all commands that my parents feel the only possible explanation is I now have a permanent medical condition. Which naturally, they attribute to aging. Let’s just say, I consider that a huge success and plan to continue ignoring everyone and doing whatever I want for the rest of my glorious life.
Even Tyra Banks would be impressed with the post-photo shoot meltdown my brother just threw.
6. BECOME A PRACTICAL JOKESTER - I’ve been studying my family for seven years now and I recently had an epiphany about how family relationships work. At some point in the trajectory of my life, perhaps after reaching a certain age, my parents suddenly went from blaming me for things I did wrong (i.e., terrorizing new toys) to sincerely trying to understand why I made such an error (i.e., was there a medical reason why I peed on the carpet? Spoiler alert: No, there was not). The transition was hard to see at first, but these days, it seems like the default explantation for why I do the crazy things I do is because I’m “getting older”. Now some pups might find this ageist and offensive. But I have a lot of free time on my paws, so I’ve decided to exploit this sweet vulnerability with a few subtle, but amusing practical jokes.
For example, I am 100% house trained. Have been since the day my parents first adopted me. But recently, I decided to start leaving a few random “treasures” for my family to find. Sometimes during the day, sometimes at night. Sometimes when they’re home, sometimes when they’re gone. Sometimes when my little brother looks at me the wrong way. You know, whatever sparks the urge. The key word to this prank is random, because humans hate when things are random. They always want to find a pattern, a problem that can be resolved with swift action. Sometimes I feel a little guilty about this prank, but watching the struggle is just too amusing I can’t resist. The best part is my parents can’t even get mad at me, because they’re convinced the main cause of my recent behavior is simply old age. And no one can blame you for old age… because sooner or later, they’ll be old too. Am I right? It’s genius.
My second favorite prank to pull on my parents is waking them up super early in the morning, especially on the weekends. Now my baby brother has been doing this for a while, and it drives my parents insane. They have no choice but to oblige him and wake up. Eventually he started sleeping longer hours, and occasionally on a rare, glorious day, will actually sleep past 6:30 am. This gave my parents hope. And it gave me the inspiration for this brilliant prank. I wait to see if my brother’s going to sleep in and if it looks like he’s still snoozing - I personally take the opportunity to wake my parents up super early. The irony of this prank is that back in my younger “teen years” my parents would have to drag me out of bed in the morning. Oh how the tables have turned. Did I mention, I wake them up by incessantly licking their faces?? It’s priceless.
Now my third prank was a little more intense. But it was still quite entertaining for yours truly. Looking back, probably not nearly as entertaining for my parents. One morning a few months ago, I decided to wake up acting completely drunk. We’ve all had those friends back in college who would drink a ton, then stumble around in circles and always seemed to lean towards the left as they walked home from the divey bars. Well, that was me on this morning. I was hoping my parents might laugh a bit about the glory days, then give me a huge, full American breakfast - you know the type, 2 eggs over easy, Texas toast, your choice of bacon or sausage (always bacon) - to really soak up the hangover. Turns out I may have oversold my inebriation because before I knew it, Dad and Mom were whisking me off to the emergency vet. Four hours of questions and exams and testing later, turns out they diagnosed me with… you’ll never guess it… Old Dog Disease.
Can you believe they actually have a medical problem called Old Dog Disease? That’s just cruel. The less offensive medical term is Vestibular Syndrome. The good news is, looks like I had the idiopathic kind which resolves on it’s own after a week or so, and not the more serious (very very serious) kind which never resolves. Also looks like that will be the last time I pull the Drunken Sailor prank. Unless of course I want to torture everyone again by making Dad, Mom, the Energizer Brother, and most importantly, myself, wait for hours in a tiny medical exam room just for a quick laugh.
That prank may be off the table, but never fear, there will be more geriatric pranks in my future.
Bacon’s Fan Club. Party of 1.
7. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Now that I’ve laid out my plan, to be candid, I can see this retirement thing going one of two ways. First, the freedom of retirement inspires me with a sudden surge of ambition and I vow to accomplish all the tasks I so eloquently listed above. Or second, I change my mind and decide to spend my glorious retirement days napping and doing absolutely nothing. Very tempting. I guess only time will tell.
Either way, looks like I’ll be accompanied by my self-appointed #1 fan, whether I like it or not (which I do, mostly). In the photo below, you can see how even after an exhausting, chaotic photo shoot (Mom has broken a sweat) this maniac is asking for “more” insanity in baby sign language.
Well, looks like I found my next goal - to selectively lose my vision.
Love, an older but questionably wiser,
Bacon the Boston