Those are our two miniature dachshunds, Tinker and Dusty.
We still call them puppies although they will turn 13 this summer, pushing the average lifespan of dachshunds of 12 to 14 years.
The picture is several years old, and doesn't show the changes that they have undergone. Both now have muzzles that have turned almost completely white, and there are several other changes as well.
Once they both weighed in at about 10 pounds. Dusty, always the smaller of the two, now weighs over 11, and Tinker now weighs less than 9. The weight change doesn't seem to bother either one of them, but I can't help but be concerned.
Even more troubling is that Dusty is slowly going blind. One eye started getting milky several years ago, and now the same cloudiness is creeping in on her other eye. She stills sees motion, but it does seem to have altered her depth perception.
I suppose all of these symptoms are more-or-less normal for their age, harbingers of things still to come. I wish they didn't make me think about losing them, and about my own mortality.
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