Shortly after we got Delilah, Hubby and I both thought she had trouble seeing. When I mentioned it at a vet appointment, the vet took a scrap of paper and let it fall down in front of Delilah and Delilah watched it fall, and that was that.

Now that Delilah has been diagnosed with a degenerative cornea disease, I know I should have pushed it farther, and perhaps taken her to an ophthalmologist right away.

My philosophy of late has been, “When we know better, we do better.” I’m not beating myself up over this, but I am taking mental notes for the future and will be more diligent in paying attention to things with my dogs.

While the ophthalmologist says Delilah will probably not go blind from this disease, Hubby and I can both tell there are areas where she has trouble seeing.

We think her eyesight is one of the reasons we’ve never been able to teach her how to NOT SNATCH food from your hands. Well….she is a lab, and labs love food, but she does take it to the extreme. You have to be super diligent with her, show her the treat, bring it down in front of her mouth and say, “Easy” and you’ve got a 10% chance of keeping your fingers. If you don’t (which most times we don’t even think of it,) all bets are off.

I know if I have a light colored treat and put it on a dark background (or vice versa) she can easily find it, but put dark colored treat on a dark background, and it takes her a very long time to find it.

We have a strict rule in the house, “No rearranging of furniture!” 🙂

Walks can be challenging, especially as the days shorten, and more of our walks are taken in the dark. I mean, there are any number of obstacles that can present themselves.

I have seen her walk into a branch, jump when our friend on a bike approached (even though she called over to us and Delilah turned, she didn’t know she was on a bike), jump when a sewer was suddenly there, not see animals in yards or roads, and there was that one time when she walked through a bramble bush, and got the vine stuck on the bridge of her nose.

I decided the best way I can help her, is to be a seeing-eye person for her.

The way I’m doing this is naming objects on our walks so she can easily navigate around them.

Here are the things I’m naming (when I remember to do it.)

Trash Can – This usually only happens on Wednesdays, which is the day our trash is picked up. But sometimes it’s on Thursdays and Fridays too, because we do have some lazy muther-fuckers in our neighborhood who don’t bring their trash bins in right away.

Car – This might seem like it’s silly to name, but really, if it’s a dark walk and a dark car….the combo could be ugly.

Sewer – The smell alone should warn her, but still, we can’t have a dog panicking because her leg went down a sewer grate.

Person – I was going to say jogger, but then what if it’s a walker? Or just a person standing there? I decided to not make this any more complicated than it is. Things are complicated enough inside my head, remembering person is hard as it is.

Branch – Once, she walked through a small branch/stick that happened to be shaped like a Y. She walked a few paces with that shit balanced on her nose before I was able to take it off. And yes, I did contemplate taking a photo before I removed it.

Bike – I don’t know about you, but the bikers in my area always seem to ride with traffic. I don’t get it, but because we are usually walking against traffic, we run encounter these peeps. A startled dog can do any number of things, and I’d just as soon as not have to write about that here.

Dog – Truthfully, most of the dogs in my neighborhood announce themselves, but on the off chance we encounter a slacker, I’m teaching her this.

Cross (for cross the street) – She’s usually pretty in tune with where I’m going, but if her snooter is caught up with a smell and she’s not paying attention, I’m teaching her what cross means.

I was going to just keep it general and teach, Object, a general term to encompass all things, but let’s face it, walking around a car is a little different than walking around a sewer, and a person is much bigger than a dog…

I suppose with winter coming we’re going to have to learn ice, snow bank, plow truck….

Did I miss any? Can you think of something that should be named on a walk?

Our encounters with off-leash dogs, e-fence dogs, and DADO’s are the stuff legends are made of. Okay, maybe that’s just in my mind, but some days, I feel like a God damn gladiator maneuvering my neighborhood with my dogs.

Last Friday we had an encounter with a neighborhood cat, and when I started looking through my dash board, for a post to reference this particular cat, I realized, we’ve also had a fair share of cat encounters as well.

One in particular is the cat two houses up. His name is Simba. You may recall him. When he was just a tiny kitten, he stalked my dogs on one of their walks.

Then there was the time Delilah treed him. **Side note, I recently found out from that neighbor that she paid someone $50 to get the cat out of the tree. I thought he came down on his own. Oops.

Simba is a born hunter. Honestly, I see this cat catching all kinds of small rodents. I even saw him with a squirrel once. The dang thing was bigger than he was, but there he was dragging it home.

Simba is a typical cat. Curious. Apparently being treed didn’t stick with him, because about two months ago, I walked outside and found him on the roof of my mother’s car, attempting to jump onto my small porch. You know, the one with the sliding door I keep open for the dogs in nice weather?

Go ahead, I’ll give you a minute to picture what would happen if Simba managed to make it onto the porch, and continue inside to the house.

Anyway, about that cat. He’s pretty bold. I mean, I know cats are supposed to be independent and all, but I thought there was a cat gene, that told cats to stay clear of dogs. If there is, Simba is missing this cat gene.

I was walking Delilah. Due to her Endothelial Decompensation, she doesn’t see as well as she used to. I can’t say with certainty, but based on my observations, I suspect she sees shadows. Because of this, she tends to walk a lot with the curb of the road on one side of her. She still wanders off onto grass, etc…but there have been many a time when she’s walked right into a small branch or stick in the road.

So there we were, walking up the street, when I see Simba getting ready to cross the street about 75 feet in front of us. Delilah was sniffing so I said, “Go Simba, go. Cross the street.”

What did the damn cat do? He sat right the fuck down, right there on the side of the road, and he stared at me.

Siriusly.

Delilah usually crosses to the Simba side of the street, (we walk against traffic), but I managed to keep her from crossing, and we passed the damn cat without her noticing. I kept my eye on that little shit, because I think he was really considering a challenge.

Don’t throw down the gauntlet to Delilah, Simba, you just might find yourself up another tree.

We’ve had cats in our house before, and the cats have always tried to be friendlier to the dogs, than the dogs are to them, but I was totally surprised that Simba didn’t seem to have any fear of Delilah.

So please, those of you with cats….is this normal cat behavior?