Pet for disabled elderly

Hello,
I enjoy the message board. Thank you for sharing your expertise.

I want to buy a pet for my grandmother who is 93, increasingly
disabled physically, and is slipping into dementia. She is lonely and
I know that having a pet around would help her. She has had dogs for
most of her life and really misses having an animal around. A dog is
out of the question. A cat represents too much responsiblity as well.
I could help with care once per week, but probably no more than that.

I want to know what if any kind of animal would be appropriate.

She lives in an assisted living home that does allow pets as long as
they are totally under control and don't require the aides to help in
care. Having something run around her studio apartment and potentially
get out and romp around the care facility is totally out of the
question. Also, even if she took something out of the cage and
contained it in the room, she would never be able to race around after
it and pick it back up, clean up its droppings around the apartment,
etc.

SO, THE IDEAL PET: Cute, furry, doesn't leave a cage, needs cage to be
cleaned
nore more than once or twice per month, doesn't carry diseases she
could catch, doesn't scare the nurses (i.e. as rats and maybe even
mice would).

Thank you!
Jeannie

Jeannie (google@mybesthealth.com (Brian Rosenthal)) wrote:

<muchsnipped>

>I want to buy a pet for my grandmother who is 93, increasingly
>disabled physically, and is slipping into dementia. [...]
>
>SO, THE IDEAL PET: Cute, furry, doesn't leave a cage, needs cage to be
>cleaned nore more than once or twice per month, doesn't carry
>diseases she could catch, doesn't scare the nurses (i.e. as rats and
>maybe even mice would).

I regret to have to say this, but I don't think _any_ pet
would be suitable. Keeping a pet -- any living animal --
implies a certain level of consistent responsibility and
physical & mental competence. A pair (because they're
social animals & keeping one alone would be cruel) of
Guinea pigs (both female, neither pregnant) might possibly
work, but... I've observed the "slipping into dementia"
phase in my mother at about that age. (*sigh*) There will
be times -- perhaps fatally-long periods as far as the pets
are concerned -- when she forgets that they need water &
food, and times when she'll remove them from the cage
and fail to return them, or do other less-than-rational
things. It's sad, and you all have my sympathy.

The only possibly-practical suggestion I can think of is a
non-living plush/stuffie toy animal -- something cuter &
more furry (& less connected to childhood) than a Teddy-
Bear, perhaps.

Don Fitch,
who, when he worked in the greenhouses at the L. A.
County Arboretum, sometimes had to advise people to get
plastic plants or a nice piece of sculpture for the situation
they described.

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