We adopted Kira from the Northeast Animal Shelter (Salem, MA) the weekend after my (now) wife moved down from Ottawa, 14 years ago this July. She came to the shelter through the
Save-A-Sato group - her
original Puerto Rico foster family-given name was 'Negrita' but she didn't respond to that. Vets estimated she was about 3 when we got her - had 2 litters, with only one live pup from the last one.
Her hips had started giving her problems 2 years ago, we gave her cosequin every day, and she had a few shots to help, but it was degenerative so not much could be done. I built a 16' ramp out our front door last July so she could still get outside without being carried. Meant a lot more snow removal for me this past winter, but it was worth it for her. We stopped carrying her upstairs for bedtime about a month ago because we were afraid she would try going downstairs on her own and fall. She really went downhill fast the last few weeks, she went from being able to slowly walk around the block to not even wanting to go out of the yard. Then the last week she could only move by hopping on her front legs and pulling her back legs along. She had gone completely deaf and had cataracts, too.
Hard decision to make, and we almost put it off again, but it wasn't fair to her either, because she was in pain, just didn't complain about it much.
We decided not to get another dog - although my wife is now questioning that decision - because we won't get another dog as good as her (traveling, being alone during the day, etc etc) and frankly I don't want to go through the heartache again.
We just had to put our older cat to sleep 6 weeks ago, and a rabbit last September, just one cat left right now.