Kathryn finds aged care that loves dogs, too

When my husband and I moved to LDK (Love, Decency and Kindness) Amberfield, a retirement and aged care community in Weston Creek ACT a year ago, there was never any question that our dog Molly would be coming with us.

We have had dogs since we were children. We’re addicted to dogs and have tried to live without them, but our efforts were futile. The house was empty without a dog.

We adopted Molly in 2019, so we’ve had her for almost seven years. Before we adopted her, she was being fostered by Caroline, a wonderful carer with Dog Rescue Newcastle, a great organisation doing such valuable work!

Molly’s age and parentage are uncertain. She appears to have a good dollop of Jack Russell in her makeup, and we think she is 8 or 9. Surprisingly for a Jack Russell she is very quiet, which helps when she has come to live in a place like this.

We chose to live in LDK Amberfield mainly for its pet-friendly policy. We would not have come here if Molly wasn’t welcome. Amberfield staff were very accommodating of Molly.

We had a garden flat in Kingston where we had hoped to live. However, although the garden is very large, no part of it was on our title and the body corporate committee made it clear that Molly would not be welcome even though it would have been easy to allow her to use freely a small part of it. Hence, we looked elsewhere.

At Amberfield, we enjoy walking and time in the dog park. She also enjoys the cafe society. Molly loves meeting people and most other dogs so when we are out, she makes it quietly clear that she is anticipating a little attention from other people she encounters.

Challenges keeping older people and pets together

Having a pet in aged care (and any multi-level apartment building for that matter) could be quite difficult, I think. We are lucky to have a villa with a dog door and a small patch of mulched garden which works very well for our dog. However, pet (especially dog) ownership is tricky if an owner becomes immobile or sick and cannot care for the dog. It is worse still if the owner is hospitalised.

If the main carer for the dog wants to go away for a couple of days and the other person can’t do the walk, it may be tricky to find someone else to take the dog out. We were fortunate when such an occasion arose for us and one of Amberfield’s carer staff took Molly for a walk one day. One couldn’t expect that to be a regular solution. It is essential to sort out a workable back-up solution.

We have established a group of volunteer drivers to take residents to medical appointments etc. It would be great to establish a similar group of volunteers to help with pets in circumstances where an owner cannot care properly for his or her pet.

As older pet owners, we really need to think about how our animals might be cared for if we drop off the twig or otherwise have no hope of continuing to manage a pet in the future. These are things that should be sorted out well ahead of a crisis.

As more of us seem to have pets when we are older, it will become essential for aged care facilities to accommodate the pets. Amberfield is a young facility but, to date, seems to have achieved that quite successfully.