A post should appear every Sunday

Sunday July 2nd 2023

I am away in Yorkshire again, this time for my nephew’s funeral. On Thursday afternoon I leave Isis at Ray’s (Hollytrees) kennels before taking the train up to Leeds. She is reluctant to approach the gate, but obediently enters and allows herself to be taken off to the kennel block.

I return to pick her up on Saturday, so this time we’re not parted for very long. When she is led back to the yard, it takes her much longer than usual to find me. I wonder whether dogs’ scenting acuity diminishes as they become older. I suppose it does.

But I can’t help adding this to my other observations of Isis over the last few months: there’s her recent reduced enthusiasm for walking; her tendency to want to go back to the car after about fifteen minutes in the park; her evident relief when I put her back on her lead; how pleased she is when her harness is put on, signalling that we’re going home. She also seems to be checking more frequently than before that I am close by.

With a sinking feeling, I have to accept that by the end of August I will have had her for nine years, and she was at least a year old when she came.

Of course, I tell myself, the reluctance to walk may be caused by the unpleasantly hot and humid weather we’ve had for several weeks now, when even in the evening dogs droop and pant, and I let her return home whenever she wants to.

Perhaps she’ll be happy to stay out longer now that the temperature has dropped.

Then there’s the fact that she’s spent many weeks in the kennels over the last four months.  Tracey and Ray tell me that each time she goes, she settles amazingly quickly, and appears to be very happy there. It’s obvious that she likes and trusts her carers, yet, of course, each stay is a disruption to her routine.

Generally, animals don’t like being separated from their people. In the past, apart from being a little clingy for her first day or two back home, she has been her usual happy self. Now though, except when asleep in the evening, she keeps coming to check where I am, and seems to be very relieved when she finds me.

Today in Highbury Park, she wants to go back to the car – usually she either leads the way up the slope, or trots by my side. But when I turn to go, she looks completely disorientated, stopping, sniffing, turning back, sniffing, going off at a tangent and then standing still as though confused. Several times I walk up to her and tap her under her chin – the signal for ‘walk on’ – but she stays where she is, or walks away.

When, eventually, I put her on her lead, she wags her tail, and happily walks back by my side.

Is it just that she’s getting old and her strange behaviour heralds incipient doggy dementia?

Before I write this post, I search online for information about the lifespan of Portugese podengos. The smallest, the pequino, I learn, can live from ten to fifteen or seventeen years, the medium, the médio, from ten to fourteen years.

Isis is a médio. She’s already 10+.  She’s old.

Now I’m feeling very apprehensive.

I don’t know what to think. Physically, she seems fine. She eats enthusiastically, her digestion is very good, her teeth are sound, her breath sweet, and she shows no sign of joint damage. She can still move quickly, jump in and out of her dog bed and up onto the day bed. She still shakes her toys vigorously, throws them around, and  her grip is so strong that it’s impossible to remove a toy from her mouth.

She charges around the room every night after her treats, so I hardly have time to hide them before she’s snuffling at my heels. She still darts back and forth, play growling with excitement when I’m trying to put her harness round her neck prior to taking her out.

These past few months have not been easy for either of us. It may be that she’s picked up my anxieties and that’s made her feel insecure.

Time will tell, I suppose.

Isis came from Aeza cat and dog rescue in Aljezur, Portugal. For information about adopting an animal from the centre, contact kerry@azea.org or go to http://www.dogwatch.co.uk.