This was a three-day weekend, with Liesl and Miranda out of town, so I spent a lot of time with Zippy. And he's definitely falling apart: far too often, he has a very hard time controlling his rear legs, and judging from the frequency of his squeaking, he's at least somewhat achy a fair amount of the time.

I still think that, on the balance, Zippy is enjoying life, but figuring out when that's not the case is going to be a lot harder with Zippy than with Yosha. With Yosha, things were very clear: as his body started failing, he stopped eating and mostly stopped moving. We made an appointment to have him put down, but he died the night before that appointment arrived. With Zippy, however, I don't think we're going to get such a clear signal: things have been slowly getting worse, and I don't think there's going to be the same sort of clear line that he's going to cross. I'm really not looking forward to making that decision, but I don't want to avoid that responsibility, either.

He, of course, remains a very very sweet guy.