[nagdu] Echo is 14!

[Tracy Carcione]

My retired guide dog Echo turned 14 on Friday!  She is amazing.  I hope
I'm as healthy when I'm her age.  I decided to retire her at 10 and a half
because she was slowing down and didn't have the endurance she used to.  I
wanted her to have some time to just be a dog.  And here she is, still
enjoying herself immensely!
She has a whole lot of fatty cysts, and some other of the hair cyst
things, but at this point, removing any would be likely to do her more
harm than good.  And her breath could kill a moose.  She's got arthritis
in her back end, which the glucosamine is helping a bit, but it's still
apparent.  But she still follows me all around the house.  Sometimes, if
I'm walking up and down a lot, I make her stay in one place, so she
doesn't wear herself out over nothing, otherwise she'll run up and down as
often as I do.  Silly thing.
She hasn't any trouble jumping up on the bed to take a nap, at least not
since we started giving her the glucosamine.  She enjoys taking short
walks with my husband, sniffing everything and saying hello to any people
they meet.  And my husband figures she must have wagged her tail well over
a million times by now.  It's as powerful as ever, and wags just as much. 
And her apppetite is excellent, too.  She's been quite spoiled since she
retired, getting all kinds of people food, in small amounts.  But she
still weighs about the same as she did in class 12 years ago--only about 2
pounds heavier.  In her heart, she's still that young silly pup, and her
body seems to be doing a great job of keeping up with that young spirit. 
She's a sweet, loving girl, and we're so happy that she's still doing
well.
Oh, she's a black lab, from GDB, if anyone is curious.
Tracy