The Old Man

I have a blind dog. He wasn't always this way, but he's pushing fourteen now and his eyes are more grey haze than brown. We try to keep everything in the same position so he can find his way around the maze of chair legs and couch corners, but he spins in circles when he gets excited and then loses his place in the world. I have learned to shuffle my feet when I walk so he can follow the sound, and wait until he is directly lined up with the steps to call his name, rather than when he is coming around the corner. The other day he tried to turn around on the couch and fell off.

I got him almost ten years ago from the dog pound, death row inmate due to skin allergies that left him looking like a scabby newborn rat. We really don't know how old he is; he acted like an old man then but the vet guesstimated him to be around four then.

Despite his failing vision there is nothing wrong with his nose, as it reliably leads him to the most wretched spots in the back yard. I have a neighbor whose sinister cat scales our fence every evening to murder dove and grackles in our apricot trees. Sometimes the vicious bastard is thoughtful enough to carry his victims back home, but most of the time he flings their decapitated bodies to the ground for the old man to find. Of course he only finds them after they've turned to a rotted, reeking mess at which point he must enthusiastically and with great vigor roll and rub every inch of his tiny body in the remains.

Only then is he ready to come back inside, and if he is lucky and I am not mindful, he will beeline without bump or bobble to the nearest bit of furniture and proceed to share his newly donned aroma with it as well.

Nothing like the smell of four day dead dove ground into my blanket to start the morning off right.