Feeding & Nutrition

The vet said two things that stuck: keep him moving, and keep him interested in food, because an old dog who stops eating is a dog the rest of his systems start to abandon. Rufus the lurcher is fourteen, all ribs and goodwill, and the second of those had started to fail, the bowl sitting longer each morning while he stood at the door like he'd forgotten why we came to the kitchen. So I did what my grandmother would have done and put a pot of bones on the stove, because the smell of real food is the one advertisement that still reaches him, the only thing that cuts through the fog of an old dog's indifference.

Bone broth is not a cure, and anyone selling it as one is selling something else, but for a dog who needs coaxing it is an honest tool. I simmer raw meaty bones, never cooked ones that can splinter, with a splash of apple cider vinegar to pull the goodness out, for the better part of a day on the lowest heat, then strain it hard and let it cool. What's left is a jelly that warms into a thin soup, and a spoon of it over his kibble turns a dry meal into something his nose finds from the next room, which is the first step with a dog who's stopped caring about the bowl.

The joints are the quiet reason. Older dogs, especially the lean ones built for running, stiffen in the cold mornings, and the broth carries a little of what the cartilage gives up if you don't boil it to death, plus the moisture a senior often stops drinking enough of. I'm not claiming it fixed his hips, the vet's supplements do the heavy lifting there, but a dog who finishes his bowl moves better than a dog who picks at it, and movement is the medicine the vet actually asked for. The broth is the bait that gets the medicine eaten, and bait is not a dirty word when the alternative is a dog who fades.

I freeze it in an ice tray, a cube per meal, because a full pot is more than one dog should have in a sitting and the fridge only keeps it so long before it turns. The cube drops into his dish, melts as he eats, and the ritual of it, the sound of the freezer, the smell, seems to remind him that eating is still on the schedule. Rufus is old and slow and mostly done with the world, but he still comes for the broth, and that coming is the thing I'm trying to protect, the small daily act that says he's still in it. A dog who walks to his bowl is a dog who's still here, and I'll simmer bones for that every week.

The caution is the bones themselves, and it's not a small one. Never give a dog the cooked bones from your own dinner, the ones that have dried and cracked in the oven, because they splinter into shards no gut should meet, sharp little spears that do real damage on the way through. The broth is the gift, the bones stay in the pot and go in the bin, and the dog gets the warm result without the risk. I learned that rule the expensive way, with a worried night and a vet who didn't need to be that worried, and I don't bend it for anyone, not even a lurcher with eyes that could talk you into anything.

There's a comfort in the making I didn't expect. The house smells of dinner for hours, the kind of smell that makes a place feel kept, and the old dog dozes nearer the kitchen than he used to, drawn by the promise of it. A pot on a low heat is a slow thing in a fast life, and the slowing down suits both of us, him because he can't hurry anymore and me because I'd forgotten how to. The broth became less about his joints and more about the half hour it forces us to spend near each other, which is the part of the medicine the vet didn't write down but probably meant.

He finishes the bowl most mornings now, slow but sure, and the limp that used to greet the cold floor has softened to a stiffness he works through instead of a surrender. The broth didn't cure the age, nothing does, but it bought him a reason to eat and a reason to move, and those two reasons are most of what keeps an old dog in the room with you. I measure the week by whether the cube drew him to the kitchen, and lately it has, every day, which is the only report card a fourteen-year-old needs to pass, and the only one I'm keeping.