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First of all, I want to thank all of you for the incredibly kind comments after I shared last week that I’d lost My Girl. They really touched me, and they help brighten my spirits as I come to terms with my now unbearably quiet apartment. Recently losing a four-footed family member is just one thing actress Carol Kane and I have in common (another is wearing our curly hair with pride). Carol lost her Johnny six months ago, after adopting him as an older dog. While on the promo trail for her latest movie Between the Temples — in which she stars as an adult Bat Mitzvah student studying with a cantor played by Jason Schwartzman; yay for rich roles for older women! — Carol took time to count the blessings of rescuing an older dog as an older person:
Carol Kane calls rescuing an older dog “a wonderful thing.”
“The last two babies I had were quite elderly when we got together,” Kane, 72, tells PEOPLE exclusively: Johnny, who she had for years and who sadly passed away six months ago, and before that, Dainty.
The latter pooch, the Oscar nominee recalls, “was so old and blind and weak when I got her. And everybody said, ‘That’s a hospice situation.’ Well, she lived another solid five years after we got together.”
Kane’s advice to prospective dog owners is to be open to all options. “It’s a wonderful thing if you feel like maybe rescuing an older dog,” she says, “because a lot of people don’t want them, because they want a quote-unquote, ‘cute puppy.’ But a puppy’s not going to stay a puppy, so that’s a bad idea anyway!”
Plus, there’s what Kane calls “a lazy thing about getting an older dog… They already mostly have been housebroken and they’re not going to teethe.”
Nor do older dogs require as much physical activity as puppies. “If you have a young dog, you really have to walk them long and hard, they need a lot of exercise,” explains Kane. “And if you have an older dog and you’re” — she pauses to find the correct working — “a slightly older person, there’s a rhythm that fits very well.”
An older pup “really needs a welcome and is so grateful for it,” the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star continues, adding, “and you can keep them alive for a lot longer than they would’ve been kept alive. And they just are so sweet.”
Kane, who in June was photographed receiving smooches from Selma Blair’s dog, loves pooches of all shapes, sizes and ages. While she’s still grieving Johnny’s passing, it may soon be time to get a new canine companion — who may again be on the older side.
Pooches, Kane concludes, are “so resilient, and a little love and care goes a long, long way. They’ve done those studies on the chimps, that if they are deprived of physical touch when they’re young, what happens to them. Dogs are like that — and so are people.”
I’m here for everything Carol is saying, but of course it’s the bit about how grateful older dogs are that tugged at my heartstrings the most. And I may not be the demographic Carol is trying to reach here, but she’s preaching to the choir (me, Kismet, I’m the choir) on the ease of older dogs. She had me at lazy! Right up until the final week, people would always comment on My Girl having a youthful energy to her when she’d come to greet you. But I must say I did enjoy the slower rhythm we’d fallen into in her senior years. And the napping, we napped well together. Being so close to My Girl’s passing, the only hesitation I have thinking about adopting a senior dog, is the thought of feeling all this grief again too soon. Overall though, I still hold the belief that the dog chooses you. If/when I’m ready to “just pass through a rescue fair” like I did 11 years ago, I am happy to be chosen by a pup of any age.
photos credit: Marion Curtis/Starpix for Sony Pictures Classics/INSTARimages, Getty, Robina Weermeijer, Baptist Standaert and Kanashi on Unsplash, Gustavo Fring on Pexels
