Golden oldies: the joy and love senior dogs can bring
Proving that you can teach old dogs new tricks, Lisa Domeny gives senior golden retrievers and their human friends a new lease on life.
If
heaven is a place on earth, it’s located at the end of a cul-de-sac in the NSW Mid North Coast town of South West Rocks. Pulling up at Lisa Domeny’s idyllic property, visitors are greeted by nine wagging tails, a rush of golden fur and 35 excitable paws. You see, Lisa and her husband Ian, a former builder, share their home with a small army of elderly dogs: six golden retrievers and three Labradors.
There’s Sam with his perfectly crimped ears; Billy Boy and his cheeky smile; ball-obsessed Leo; lone brown Lab Bo; the appropriately named Bear; handsome Harry, who’s recently lost 15 kilos; new kid on the block Oscar; shy Poppy hiding in the bushes; and resident rascal Marlie, who has three legs (hence the odd number of paws). Together, they’re an adorable welcoming committee.
When people talk about heaven, they never mention the dog poo. “A good portion of my day is spent picking up poo and sweeping up fur,” says Lisa, 53, gesturing to her hair-covered timber floors as we sit down for a cup of tea. “I swear I vacuumed before you came.”
Lisa, an artist and former teacher, didn’t set out to become a professional pooper scooper. Rather, she built up to it gradually. It started with Sam, who Lisa adopted in 2014 from a rescue centre in Queensland.
“That’s how I fell in love with
“It’s incredible to see the way people light up when they spot them. They’re like rock stars.”
golden retrievers,” explains Lisa, who was then asked to foster her first elderly dog, Maggie. “The rescue centre was looking for permanent foster carers for dogs that couldn’t be adopted out – usually because they were too old. And that’s how
I fell in love with senior dogs.”
In the past seven years, Lisa has taken in 26 senior dogs, the majority of whom came to her from the charity Golden Retriever Rescue.
“We’re like the Golden Retriever Rescue retirement home,” she says. “We take in the old dogs that no-one else wants. Some have been neglected, abused or rescued from puppy farms. Others come to us when their owners are unable – or unwilling – to take care of them in their old age. The
only requirement is that they have to be good with other dogs.”
For Lisa, the older, the better: “There are so many dogs out there looking for a loving home – especially older dogs. Our time with them might not be as long, but we are determined to give them the best – for whatever time we’ve got with them.”
Taking on one senior dog is an enormous commitment; taking on nine at once is a full-time job. Lisa wakes up early to the sound of heavy breathing coming from her lounge room. Billy Boy follows her to the bathroom and doesn’t leave her side for the rest of day. In the morning light, Lisa and Ian take the team up to the sunny patch at the front of their property for a play. When Lisa heads down to her “girl cave” to work on her leadlight sculptures, Billy Boy follows her like a shadow and sits patiently at her feet.
Some days, the team ventures out to offer up “free hugs” at the town’s shopping centre or to spread the word about pet adoption at schools, scout halls and local clubs. Every Monday, they visit the nursing home, where resident Grant will have a packet of treats ready, and Bob – who’s 100 – will have a banana waiting for Billy Boy.
Back at home, afternoon feeding time is a military operation involving strategically placed bowls and kilos of kangaroo meat, vegies and dry food.
At bedtime, the dogs play musical beds and sleep wherever they fall in the lounge room – except Poppy, who retires to “her corner” where she feels safest.
The highlight of every day is seeing the joy the dogs bring. “It’s incredible to see the way people light up when they spot them. They’re like rock stars,” says Lisa, who started the Team Golden Oldies (TGO) social media account in 2014 to spread the aforementioned joy far and wide. Across Facebook and Instagram, the page has almost 18,000 followers.
The dogs get Christmas cards from fans in Canada and America, and once a woman came to visit them in South West Rocks all the way from Germany, fulfilling a bucket-list dream after her cancer diagnosis; happily she has since recovered.
Like a mirror, TGO followers reflect the love they receive straight back. After adding up how much she’d spent on vet bills in the first two years of caring for the Team – a staggering total of $45,000 – Lisa set about registering as a charity with the help of a committee including local vet Dr Shae Sullivan.
“When my friend first suggested we become a charity, I said no because I didn’t want other people to pay for something I do by choice, but I had people messaging me wanting to help financially because they’re not in a position to take care of a senior dog themselves,” says Lisa, who succumbed to the charity idea on one condition: it had to be bigger than her. “We wanted to pay it forward, and now we’re in a position to help cover the cost of life-saving surgery and medical bills for other elderly dogs whose owners can’t afford to do so. In the last financial year, we paid the vet bills of 18 dogs – sharing the TGO love.”