But, at least, he had strolled into its early autumn.
And this, be it well remembered, is the curse which Stepmother Nature placed upon The Dog, when he elected to turn his back on his own kind, and to become the only one of the world's four-footed folk to serve Man of his own accord.

To punish the Dog for this abnormality, Nature decreed that his life should begin to fail, almost as soon as it had reached the glory of its early prime.
A dog is not at his best, in mind or in body, until he has passed his third year.

And, before he nears the ten-year mark, he has begun to decline.

At twelve or thirteen, he is as decrepit as is the average human of seventy.

And not one dog in a hundred can be expected to live to fourteen.
(Lad, by some miracle, was destined to endure past his own sixteenth birthday; a record seldom equaled among his race.) And so to our story:-- When the car and the loaded equipment-truck drew up at the door, that golden October day, Lad forgot his advancing years.