I've come to realize in the last few days that my 12 year old collie/golden retriever mix, Oasis can't hear anymore. He's been kind of spacey lately and I attributed that to senility setting in, and every once in a great while he will have some incontinent problems, but the last couple days, he doesn't come when I call and yesterday my husband forgot his key to the front door so he had to sneak in through the garage - not an easy task if could see all the junk in our garage. He said when he finally got in the door, Oasis was staring into the front room towards the front door and didn't even realize he had just walked into the kitchen.
It's sad for me. I've had him the longest of all my dogs. I got him from someone who had rescued him from an abusive situation when he was just a few months old. Oasis and I have been through a lot together - even moving from South Dakota to Texas to Louisiana together. He has made friends everywhere he went - from the 80 year old "Uncle Gus" at our apartment in Houston who used to throw malted milk balls up to him as he sat on our balcony to a little white dog who would come paw at the door to our apartment to play with Oasis when we first moved to Louisiana and now all the kids in our neighborhood who knock on our door and ask, "can Oasis come out and play."
Now, day to day, I can see him winding down toward his final time with me here on earth. No matter how I try to prepare myself, it's not going to be easy.
