The golden years haven’t been so golden for Brooke, our basset hound.

When she joined our family in 2007, she was already a somewhat matronly creature enjoying a healthy middle age. The basset rescue people didn’t know her exact birth date, but they told us to think of her as being in her early 40s, in human years.

She was a good sport about her mid-life change of venue. In the Olshans, she found three enthusiastic, if slightly roly-poly, companions. In other words, she fit right in.

From the start, she wasn’t what you would call a guard dog. First of all, she never barked. When she wanted something, she would simply aim her drooping face and stand there stubbornly until the bowl filled itself with food or water; or the offending door swung out of the way; or the desired rubs were, at long last, bestowed.

She was an excellent sleeper — perhaps a little too good. True, she did like to stretch out in doorways like a speed bump, which created a fantastic tripping hazard in the dark. But even if an intruder had fallen right on top of her, I suspect her response would have been an indignant sneeze; a resentful glare from a sleep-reddened eye; and the thump of her eager tail, followed by a slow, but obedient, rotation to expose her belly.

At first, we worried that she wouldn’t be able to handle steep stairs, but she managed just fine, even if the long pauses she took on the second floor landing reminded us of a ski jumper psyching herself up before the final run.

All in all, we felt very lucky to have found Brooke. She was in good physical and mental shape: a sweet dog with powerful appetites, but unburdened by neurosis, and good with children and adults alike. In short, an “easy keeper,” just as the basset rescue people had promised.

Of course, seven years is half a lifetime for a basset hound, and in that time, Brooke has had her fair share of challenges. When we met her, she had a little bump on her lower lip, which the vet told us was harmless fat deposit. We thought of it as an alluring sign of individuality, like Marilyn Monroe’s beauty mark. Since then, however, the little bump has grown into a huge bump, which in turn has grown its own little bump. Not so alluring. In fact, bumps have broken out all over, including a big scary one the size of a plum on the back of her neck, and a gross pink one on her belly that looks like a rogue nipple — on steroids.

We’ve been keeping an eye on them, but the vet assures us that the bumps are cosmetic. Our attitude is that if they don’t bother her, they shouldn’t bother us, although other dog owners will sometimes ask about them in a hushed voice, as if to spare Brooke’s delicate feelings.

But in the past few years, the poor dog has been dealing with something fairly serious: seizures.

Seizures aren’t terribly uncommon in dogs, but the sight of her powerful body arched in convulsion, her legs scrambling furiously, her eyes rolled back, her jaws snapping and foaming . . . let’s just say that afterwards, as she’s wandering restless and dazed through the house, wagging her tail submissively as if she’s meeting us for the very first time, I have a tiny inkling of what it must be like to have a child with epilepsy. It’s like watching a familiar happy creature vanish and be replaced by a mindless body, seemingly at war with itself.

After the first seizure, phenobarbital entered her life, and with it, the mini-marshmallows that serve, twice a day, as its delivery system.

The drugs have done a decent job of controlling the seizures, although she still has them every few months, sometimes in clusters. She’s also on various medicines for the arthritis that has made trips up and down the stairs a much more daunting affair. At night, we put her in a sporty harness with a loop on the back that acts as a handle, so we can help her up and down the stairs, bleary-eyed, to relieve her ever-shrinking bladder.

Lately, she’s as sleepless as an infant. And there isn’t much to be done for her failing eyes, which have turned milky with glaucoma.

So there it is. We live with a geriatric hound. For a few hours a day, she’s the same old lovable dog we adopted all those years ago. The rest of the time, we deal with her special needs with as much patience and love as we can muster. That’s the deal we struck when she came into our lives.

It’s not always easy. Lately she’s developed a thunderous, ear-splitting bark that she doesn’t hesitate to use when things aren’t going her way. In the wee hours of the morning, when she’s barking her head off defending the bathroom, for instance, from a perfectly innocent toilet brush; or when her seizure-addled mind can’t seem to remember that she was already fed — LIKE, FIVE MINUTES AGO! — it’s tempting to say: enough.

But there’s no such thing as enough. Taking care of a pet as she ages is part of the deal.

As I bury my face in my shirt to filter out her vile nightly vapors; as I startle from my pillow to her middle-of-the-night serenades, I think: someday, if I’m lucky enough to live a good long life with a loving family, that poor, needy, irritating hound could be me!