Sorry about the slow blogging, but it is his fault

Above is Coco.  Coco is fifteen and a half years old.  He used to be my parent's dog.  My Mom and Dad always loved dogs and cats, so when their old dog, a brittany spaniel named Suzy died, they wanted to get another dog, but they were both getting on.  I told them to go ahead and get the dog and I would take care of it if they could no longer do so.  Well, my mother died about 8 years ago and my Dad went into assisted living five years ago (no tears please--their average age at death was north of ninety and my Dad published his last scholarly paper in an Oxford University journal at 93).  So about five and a half years ago, I took Coco.  He is ridiculously smart, which is not a good thing.  He can drive me nuts, and he knows exactly how to annoy me so he gets what he wants (yeah, yeah, I know he did a good job training me, but YOU try to best him).  However, when I got him he was already ten years old.  I figured, how long could he last, for crying out loud. Well, fast forward five and half years and people still ask if he is a puppy when I walk him.  He fricking bounces around.  He eats more than a St. Bernard.  He is half deaf and doesn't see well at night, but if a 100 pound dog wanders into "his" yard, he will try to take the poor thing's head off.  So just recently, he had a few accidents (tinkle) in the house, and to his credit, that had never been an issue.  Aha!  His kidneys were finally shutting down!  Time for him to go meet the big poodle in the sky.  I have waited for other symptoms to show up.  But he still bounces around, eats like a horse and is still the same annoying dog that runs the house instead of playing by the house rules.  I finally took him to the vet--that is why my whole schedule is out of whack.  Freaking urinary tract infection.  Two weeks of pills and he is back to "normal".  And I just read the other day about a dog in England that died at 30 something years old.  Since I am convinced the highest joy in Coco's life is to annoy me, I am going laying bets right now he lasts another 15 and a half years . . .