Nadi is fading. It makes me sad but this is what happens when you raise a pet. She is now a little bit above the average lifespan of her breed and while she still has moments of "puppydom" she is starting to show her age and every time it happens it saddens me just a bit.
She still likes to join me everywhere but I am starting to notice more and more than especially in unfamiliar surroundings, she is really struggling to see. I had started to let her off the leash in order to go to these vacant lots that she enjoys running around in and peeing 900 times but in the past few days we have had a few accidents that really scared me and I'm afraid the leash is going to have to go back on.
On two situations she would poke her head up, then hear something and go running in some random direction after she couldn't spot me right away. She can't spot me because I feel like almost all of what she can see right now must be a big blur. With my own eyesight fading with age I guess I can kind of understand that but I think that Nadi can't really see very far ahead of her at all.
The first time it was cute because she ran up to some random stranger and put her paws up on his motorbike kind of likes she was asking him to pick her up. I was 15 meters away or so at the same place that I had set her down. I think she got spooked and thought she was running towards me.
The 2nd time it happened was just about an hour ago and she was about 5 or 6 meters behind me, finished peeing on something, then did the same "look around, kind of scared, then take off in some direction" action. This time was scary because she charged off into the middle of the street. Vietnamese streets are very busy and they don't exactly look out for dogs running hither and tither so we just got very lucky that this time there were no cars or motorbikes around. Normally there would be a lot of them.
I picked her up at this point after shouting "STOP!" which thankfully she will totally freeze when she hears that. I guess we still have that until her hearing starts to fade as well.
I think Nadi maybe thought she was in trouble because I shouted, but I was only just really concerned because I know how devastated I would be if she were to get hit by a car simply because I wanted to give her a bit more freedom. I think I am going to have to admit that unless we are in a totally enclosed area, that the leash is going to be a necessary part of our outdoor time.
Just so she wouldn't think she was in trouble we went to our local breakfast place and had eggs benedict and she received quite a lot of this given her size.
What she doesn't yet know and wont for another 3 hours is that later today she has to pay a visit to her least favorite place in the world: The doggy beauty salon. I semi threaten the staff at this place every time I go in there about how they need to be gentle with her but in the meantime I have already decided that I am going to ask an ex-dog-groomer friend of mine about what sort of clippers and scissors I need to buy and just start doing the haircuts myself even if it looks bad. Nadi obviously feels a lot more at ease with me doing it and she also receives a lot of treats during the process and I think this will sort of become like bath time at home where she doesn't like it, but almost looks forward to it because she knows there are plenty of rewards in the process. At the doggy salon, there is nothing but suffering unfortunately.
it's kind of a shame to have to have her on the leash at these nature areas, but I suppose the outcome wont really be all that different. I'll just have to do a lot of walking myself and if that makes my dog happy, it is something I am more than willing to do.
