A pet’s usefulness to your happiness does not set the limit of your responsibility.

An animal is easy to love while it is delightful and harder when it is expensive, frightened of everything, or simply old. The commitment was never conditional on the pleasure, even though the pleasure is what got most of us into it. What you owe an animal is set by how completely it depends on you, not by how much it currently gives back. That gap is where care actually starts.

If a pet in your house has become difficult, separate what can be fixed from what cannot. Adjust the arrangement, the vet visits, the routine, rather than adjusting the affection.