Scooter is a good-natured, still-rambunctious low-to-the-ground, grey Schnauzer-mix. His owners, a doctor and a nurse, had something done to his larynx when he was a pup so they wouldn't be annoyed by a barking dog. Their little Shih-tzu prior to having Scooter, always tied to a stake on the front lawn, had been an incessant yapper. Scooter is now in his 13th year, and according to our neighbour who lives down the street, he is slowing down considerably. Instead of running before her, he now lags most uncharacteristically. The neighbour who walks Scooter isn't his owner.

She, in fact, had her own dog once, Della, a large, loose-limbed golden Retriever, equally good-tempered, anxious to please, loving to be noticed, and ecstatic when someone would toss her ball for her. Della was once our neighbour's companion on her ravine walks. Della, however, was her husband's dog, she always says, not hers. Her husband, being twenty years her senior, outpaced her considerably in the 'creaking elderly' category, and walking Della and looking after Della's needs increasing fell to her. And as Della aged, she swiftly became decrepit, suffering like many large dogs from hip dysplasia. Surgery helped a bit, but then deterioration set right back in. And because our neighbour felt so hemmed in, resenting that the spontaneity and pleasure had gone out of her life, Della was put down.

As our neighbour said to me, "Della had a life, I didn't". This, occasioned by a recent conversation where I related how constrained our life had become, looking after the increasing needs of our little 19-year-old miniature Poodle. Blind, deaf, her memory impacted by age, we've had to barricade stairs, be alert to her needs, walk her very carefully to guide her along, and clean up incessant messes in the house. But she still takes pleasure in life, her visceral organs, her heart and lungs are strong.

Our neighbour thinks we're mad for not putting her down. We don't.

After Della was put down, our neighbour was free to travel the world as an eager and happy tourist, leaving her elderly husband at home. The reasoning was that she was still young and eager to explore new places, while he was too old and disinterested. And his advanced age had left him unable to adequately care for Della in his wife's absence. Ergo: dispense with the nuisance and everyone was free; Della from pain, the husband from responsibility he could not carry through, and herself to roam to her heart's content, without guilt.

Because Scooter lives across the street from her, and isn't taken out for walks all that often by his busy owners, our neighbour has an arrangement with them to take him out to our neighbourhood ravine for daily rambles. Used to be a time when Scooter chased squirrels, outran our neighbour and took himself home. Now he ambles leisurely behind her. Time, she told me, to stop taking him out; she has no intention of being bogged down by an elderly dog.

Besides, she's got a trip to Italy coming up shortly.