Troughton the dog will be 10 this year, and in the last few weeks I’ve noticed changes in his behavior. He sleeps more, as you would expect, but he no longer is the first one up and out the door in the morning. He has to be coaxed to go out. But the big change is that when it’s time to come in (there’s always been a mad dash between all three of them to come in at the same time) he holds back. And I believe he’s forgetting why he’s at the door.
You know how you go into another room to find something you left there, and then when you get there, you can’t remember what you were looking for? So then you go back to the first room to try to jumpstart your memory? Okay, if this hasn’t happened to you, please keep it to yourself!
But that’s exactly how Troughton acts. He gets just to the step and stands there. Then he turns around and goes back out in the yard. Only moments later he will be back at the door. Each time I tell him to come in, but it’s as if he either doesn’t recognize me, or he doesn’t understand what I’m saying. Eventually, of course, he figures it out, and comes back in.
Things scare him more than they used to. He’s always been afraid of thunder and of gunshots (we have a lot of those in my neighborhood during duck hunting season, because I live near a lake). But last Tuesday when it stormed, briefly, he went into the bathroom to escape. It stopped storming at about 10:15 that night, but he never came out of the bathroom until 6:00 the next morning when I insisted.
He’s often startled out of an apparently sound sleep by something happening only in his head. Tonight I was watching TV, sitting on the couch, and he was lying by my side, when suddenly he had one of those startled moments where he started to leap up out of a sound sleep and run. This time I caught him and touched him and spoke to him, and said, You’re okay, you’re safe, I’m right here. And he looked at me as if he recognized me this time and understood, and he put his head in my lap.
Dobermans have an average lifespan of 10 to 12 years, so he’s at the beginning of that curve. But I know, as everyone does who lives with a dog, that he has changed. Physically, he is in relatively good shape. He’s thin, because he’s losing muscle, but he shows no signs of arthritis (the deadliest dog disease) and he does not appear to be in pain. It’s just his brain that has become the issue.
But this is what I signed on for. ‘Til death do us part, Troughton my friend.
The singer/songwriter Tom T. Hall has a ballad called “Old Dogs and Children and Watermelon Wine”. Which are, he says, the onlythings “worth a solitary dime”. The watermelon wine part is self-evident, but the lyrics say, Old dogs care about you even when you make mistakes; God bless little children while they’re still too young to hate. I can say an amen to that.
I’m in that horrible period where you’re missing them before they’re gone. It’s like pre-grief grief. But I’ve been there before with a dog, and I volunteered for this anyway. Because with dogs, it’s truly No Pain No Gain. You could spare yourself this–and I know many people do–but you also spare yourself the joy and companionship.
I take the good with the bad for you, Troughton. You’re okay. I’m right here. I will always keep you safe.
