A couple of years ago, 
we were staying right in town for a couple of months: For our groceries we drove to the Sobey’s at McAllister’s. We always took our dog with us, which meant that one of us went inside the store and the other hung around with our 17 year old dog.
On one Saturday morning it was my turn to stay behind and I decided to sit down on the sidewalk. Suddenly, we were approached by a young fellow, who carefully and gently approached the dog, let her sniff his hand. He looked at me and then said that ‘he loved dogs’ and that he could tell right off the bat that this dog was extremely old. I told him he was close and that she was almost 17 or so, as we were never really sure if she was 16 or 18. Upon my question, how he could tell she was old, he said of her ‘composure’ (shoulders down) and her lack of interest of anything happening around. After a brief chit-chat, the youngster patted our dog for one last time, waved and walked away.
I only mention this story as the situation was a sort of surreal: me and the dog, relaxing on the sidewalk and an (obvious) dog-loving person paying his respects to our dog. You don’t see that all too often.