Still Here
Sorry for the long delay between posts; it seems as though, when I haven’t been hideously busy, I’ve been in serious hermit mode, which is not conducive to blogging. Still, I need to get back into the habit.
At the moment, I’m winding up a week of vacation during which I went nowhere of interest and got only marginal amounts done; basically, it just let me recover a bit from the recent annual meeting, which is very rewarding but also very exhausting from all the running around and constant high adrenaline levels. (I usually lose about 5 pounds in the week or so around a meeting, but unfortunately it’s a short-lived loss.) Next time, I really should go into training about a month beforehand, and also bring a pedometer so I can see how much I walk.
The time off has also given me the chance to hang out with Nigel more, and I must say I’m getting rather worried about his hearing. If he’s paying attention, he seems fine, but if he’s distracted or asleep, he misses a lot of things he normally doesn’t. For instance, if he’s napping on the futon and I get up to go into the kitchen, he normally will wake up and come into the kitchen with me, on the off chance that I might prepare, for instance, a baked potato and then accidentally drop it face-down on the floor, leading to a serendipitous snack for him. (Hey, it’s happened. Once is all it takes to reinforce his hopes, it seems.) At the very least, he’ll raise his head and look at me inquiringly, which is my cue to tell him whether I’m making lunch or just making a cup of tea. Lately, though, he doesn’t seem to notice nearly as much. I can even open the refrigerator sometimes without him coming into the kitchen and half-climbing into the fridge to see what’s in there. Unless he’s expecting them, he seems to miss lower-decibel sounds like that, though he still responds to louder, unexpected sounds, and even to quieter ones when he’s paying attention (which suggests that his hearing is now actually a bit worse than my own is).
There have also been several times when I’ve returned home at an odd time and surprised him — as in, opening the door and having the dog not notice I’m back. Once he was looking out the window, probably at squirrels, and it look me several attempts to get his attention. That’s a little scary, particularly when he’s napping on the floor or on his blanket, and I’m roaming the flat calling out to him but he can’t hear me. Until I find him, I worry that someone’s come in for some reason — to fix a pipe or something — and accidentally let him out and he’s gotten hit by a car, or that he’s had a heart attack or seizure or something and died while I was gone. His vision and hearing have always been rather good, and it feels off-kilter for him to have cataracts and somewhat muted hearing.
He doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered by it, at least, and is otherwise in good spirits. It just bothers me when Nigel shows signs of his age, which I acknowledge is unrealistic: he’s 12, and is generally in good health and doing pretty well, so I shouldn’t freak out over things like this. I’m grateful that he is still healthy, friendly, and reasonably energetic (though thankfully less hyperactive than he was when he was 2 years old). It’s just that, in my head, he’s always about 5, and I want to slap the people we meet on our walks who say, “Oh, he’s really old, isn’t he?” Bastards.
Anyway, the issue seems to be more mine than Nigel’s, but I’ll still ask the vet for ideas when we go for his bloodwork in a few weeks. (Unless he becomes distressed or lethargic, it’s probably not necessary to take him in specially.) The vet’s always said that his cataracts aren’t bad enough to warrant surgery, but maybe it’s time to reconsider, and there may be some sort of canine hearing aid I could get for him. Hmm.
