TRUMAN AND OLIVER SNUGGLE BUDS

there,” but she hasn’t lost her spark.

“You can see the gradual decline,” Thomas says, but “she still has a lot of puppy in her. Her body can’t keep up with her personality.”

She loves car rides and gets overcome with excitement, but Thomas now has to pick her up and put her in the car.

“It makes me sad, because she used to jump on in,” Thomas says.

Despite the aches and pains, the senior life is a good one. Lucille eats an early dinner and retires to her “happy place” on the edge of Thomas’ bed by 8 p.m.

When Thomas’ 71-year-old mother stays over in the guest bedroom, Lucille is by her side.

“We call it the senior lounge,” Thomas says. “She loves it when my mom is here. She takes comfort in being with my mom.”

Lucille is healthy for an older dog, but Thomas knows the day will come when her pup is no longer waiting for her in the chaise lounge near the front door.

“I’ll miss her greeting me,” she says. “The happiness in her. All her sounds and smells — you get used to certain things about your pet. I can’t picture my home without her in it. Maybe we just have to move.”

WHEN A FLUFFY ORANGE RABBIT wandered into Martha Justice Moore’s friend’s yard a few months ago, an unlikely friendship formed.

Moore took in the bunny, which “clearly was someone’s pet,” she says, because he’s friendly and approaches everyone including Moore’s 1-year-old English sheepdog, Truman.

“The rabbit is not afraid of him, and he’s not afraid of the rabbit,” she says.

In fact, they play and snuggle on the regular.

“It’s quite entertaining. I’ve never seen that before,” she says. “[Truman] licks him and grooms him. He’s parenting him.”

Moore took the rabbit, which her family named Oliver, to the vet, who agreed that he was a high-end $50 pet. She posted signs around the neighborhood, but no one claimed him. So Oliver is taking up residence with Truman and with Moore’s sons, who are 9 and 11.

“He wants to be around people,” she says. “If the boys sit down by his bed, the bunny will come over and sit right next to them.”