I'm always amazed at the utter meanness of people.
ESPECIALLY when it involves a living, feeling entity. Are those people thinking about the 14 yr old dog? Nope.
Yeah most people don't think about that kind of stuff. My dog has feelings. He gets upset when I am angry. He starts to shake and gets scared when a storm is coming. When my cat died he knew something was wrong. I took him some time to get back to his normal self. He misses people when they are gone. My cat would never come out if we had guests unless he knew them. He would hide for hours. And the funny thing is that the people he knew could come back years latter and he knew them and would come out to see them. This isn't only about the people involved. Pets have feelings too.