My first Cocker was 16 years and 51 weeks when I lost him, but in a lot of ways he'd been an old boy for many years. He was about 9 or 10 when he started having prostate problems, went deaf and was diagnosed with a heart murmur. He was a bit of a plodder after all of that, but still enjoyed life, just at a slower pace
William is 11 and a half and has Dry Eye, lumbosacral disc damage, cataracts, has gone deaf recently and has had 2 lots of surgery in the last 6 months, firstly to remove a small cancer on his tongue and then to remove a large fatty lump next to his penis and another small lump in his mouth (luckily non cancerous). Despite that he's very fit and lively and the only outward sign of his age is that his orangey bits have faded to pale gold
. Watching him running about so happily on our walks is a real pleasure.
When we set up the Oldies board we didn't really make a conscious decision to arrive at over 9. Somebody suggested it and it seemed about right because 9 or so seems to be an age where some Cockers slow down a bit, or get niggly aches and pains, go grey, go deaf, all sorts of things generally associated with age. But they're all different of course