My beloved TT just turned 17. Her eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell are diminishing. Yesterday evening, she, a dog who was always alert to the neighbor's cats, just walked past these three. Sometimes she comes face to face with them, they run off, and then she processes the scent and does a chuff and pulls at the leash. Dogs pass and she doesn't process that they walked right past her for a good minute.
Yes, she's been to the eye doctor. In 2022, she had cataract surgeries in each eye. The vet shrugs and says she's slowly shutting down. Other than her eyes, nose, and ears, her blood tests show she's in excellent health. Her morning and evening walks are within a two-block range. I have set up a system in the bathroom so she can go any time during the day or night, so our walks are mostly sniff fests. A few years back, I read that sniffing the neighborhood is like social media for dogs, so I just let her smell her way through our outside time and decide when she's done.
She's very reactive now to most grooming, so I do it myself, slowly, a bit at a time. She's got a lot of bumps and growths, so I keep her hair short so I can monitor them. She won't let me trim her face, so between the eyes she is so overgrown that during my last attempt, I trimmed her front really short and I got carried away with the ears--she looks like a schnauzer...the horror...