Pandy has an address sticker on her head. The kind of address sticker you get in the mail when you receive a request for a donation to some charity. I love the stickers but I rarely send a donation. Anyway, Pandy now has ID.
She is so strange, she can't hear a thing anymore and can hardly see. When we moved into this house we had five steps off our porch, on either side of these steps was a brick wall about a foot wide, four feet long. Pandy would walk out on this wall---and right off the end---thump onto the sidewalk about four feet below. This happened a few times before she got the idea. She also would go out to do her business and go to the house two doors down and stand at their front door. I had to go and get her several times---until her smell permeated our front lawn, then she knew which door was her door.
She is 18 years old, that is---let's see---126 years old in dog years. That's just too old. She has taken to wandering, she always was a wanderer. When we lived on Hecktown Road she would wander to the neighbors two doors down. They called her Kramer because she would come--eat their cat's food---and leave. Kramer!! So, when we moved to Iowa I allowed her to wander. She earned the right to wander. If anything happened to her while she was "out" at least she would die doing what she loved to do.
So, last Tuesday I was getting ready to go out for the day. She noticed me getting ready and she knew it meant she would be left in the house. So, when I let her out before I was to leave--she wandered off and didn't come back. For two hours I looked for her. No Pandy. My ride came and I left, I can't change my plans for Pandy. She gets out much more than I do!!! I didn't get home until 5:30 and there she was, walking in the lawn, looking a bit nervous. She was glad to see me and I was glad to see her. My day had been ruined by the thought that I had left old Pandy outside, even though it was a mild 68 degrees and sunny. She was walking slowly and could hardly make it up the steps. Once inside she fell asleep under my desk and didn't move the rest of the night. I looked at my answering machine and there was a call---I listed--it was Dylan telling me he had found Pandy wandering around the baseball diamond across the street from our house, he had brought her home and put her in the yard. He was just letting me know. So, Pandy had been across the street, in the baseball field. How did she get in there, it's fenced!! Hmmm. The next day she was out in the yard and some older kids came by on their bikes. They stopped and were talking among themselves, "that's the dog that was at our school on Tuesday". It was odd that teenagers would stop and talk about something like that. So, concerned, I walked out and talked with them, told them Pandy was deaf and almost blind. They told me she had been at their school, the middle school a few blocks down. They had played with her, and were so concerned about her they asked their principal if she could come in. He didn't allow it.
So, Pandy had quite the day. On Wednesday she could barely get up, I had to lift her down the steps so she could do her business, I had to carry her back up. The following day also. She was so stiff and sore I believe there were many more stories to tell about her day wandering. I'll never know where she had been or what she had been doing. All I know is that now she has a sticker on her head---and it's going to stay there.
