This was a photo I took last week when our small animal vet, Dr. Brenda Culver, was here at the ranch for her annual check-up visit. She was doing a physical exam of our old girl blind Kenai, who had come to us many years ago from an animal control shelter in California. Kenai has definitely been showing the signs of her advanced aging in the past couple of years, but I hadn’t realized until I uploaded this photo onto my computer just how gray her face had become. It’s funny how you don’t always notice the gradual changes of the aging process until one day, bang, the cumulative effect is suddenly very apparent. In this case, I was struck by all the gray she now has. She looks different, I thought … very, very old! Bless her heart, Kenai is still holding her own. She gets a bunch of daily meds like any elderly lady, continues to have impeccable potty habits, and has a hearty appetite.
Besides her grayness, the only real physical signs of her aging are creaky hips that we are treating her for. We are beginning to see some odd behavior that we attribute to aging, though. For example, she sometimes gets confused when she comes into the house and gets "lost" trying to find her favorite cot next to the living room windows, so we have to take her by the collar and lead her over to it. Other times she will lie on her cot and start barking for no apparent reason … she’s had dinner, been out to potty, had water, etc., so her physical needs have all been taken care of. We don’t know why she’s barking and we don’t think she knows why she’s barking, but a gentle tap on her head usually brings it to an end. Sometimes she will mill around on her cot, get down and mill around on the floor, then get back on the cot and do it again. We know what this means: She needs to go outside to potty, so we lead her to the door.
We don’t know how old she really is, but we figure somewhere north of ancient. She already had a gray muzzle when she came to us, and that was at least five years ago. It can be both sad and endearing to watch a dog getting old, and heartbreaking knowing the day is coming. But right now Kenai is still enjoying her life here, and this afternoon she is snoozing happily on her cot as the fall sunshine streams through the window.
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Note on the ‘America’s Favorite Animal Shelter’ contest: Some of our international friends said they couldn’t cast votes, and so I looked up the official contest rules and found they are limiting participation to residents of the United States only. Sorry!
Rolling Dog Farm Blog 
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