When you age, things change.
You get too old to chase your Chesapeake Bay through a marsh. Your wife gets a couple of tiny crossbreed, toy, hybrid designer mongrels you pretend to hate but your bones hurt and your joints hurt and you know you could never really chase Rock through the woods again like you used to decades ago. You wept for Moose. You wept for Hanz. Big, sturdy dogs who brought you birds you'd shot and chased hogs. Manly. Well-trained animals who knew the report of a rifle.
And you get old. And the tiny, 5lb toy dog reads you like a god damned book every step of the way. And every "the only real dog is a big dog" pretense you have melts away. Gave the wife hell about you, but I bundled you up to visit the kids and grandkids. Carried you into Shipleys on one arm to get the grandkids their twists and bullseyes. Made you a special raw diet; 3 hours every Sunday and packed into containers in the fridge in the garage. Begged to figure out what I could do to keep you here.
What the fuck is a god damned maltipoo anyway???
People keep going before I do. You weren't supposed to be one of them.
If you're lucky, you live long enough for god to laugh at you.
I'm a lucky man.
Goodbye, Ace.