Meaggi NW (#1)

Poor Meaggi, at 14 years and 4 months, she is getting older by the minute. She's really weak in the right rear and so loses her balance a lot. She's deaf now and almost blind. I think she only sees very large stuff and only in good light. Every day could be her last, but she persists. Fortunately she's not in any pain and God knows she still loves to eat.

I've tried to think of things to do with her for enrichment, but she seemed to have lost her ability to remember from day-to-day. The physical weakness is a limitation too. She gets several hours of cuddle time with me on the couch each evening, but that's really all there is for her. I used to have her sleeping with me, but was getting completely exhausted by her restlessness, waking me 20+ times each and every night. So now she sleeps in a crate.

Getting her to do things just as part of our daily routine was a real challenge too, since she can't hear and really can't see well enough to even follow my hand. Then I hit on the idea of luring her with food and putting food where I wanted her to go. That helped a lot and over time (about a month of consistency on my part) she relearned our routine and now goes where I want without the luring. I make sure the goods are there when she gets there.

So, I started tossing food out for her to find in the yard just for entertainment value. I broadcast it all over and she finds it all every time. I watched once and she managed to find a tiny fragment of popcorn that I could barely see and snarfed it up without any difficulty.

Last night I tried to sneak past her and get in the house for a training session with Gimme. Meaggi didn't see me and I know she can't hear me, but she knew I was there right away. I'm sure she caught my scent within five seconds of me getting out of the car, from about forty feet away.

It occurred to me - why not train her in nosework? Based on the results I got with food luring to re-teach our routine, she is still able to learn and make associations and obviously her nose works just fine. So I decided to start her tonight. It doesn't matter how far we get, only that she has fun and enjoys herself.

Tonight I laid out the boxes on the floor and put a bit of food in one. She tripped over a couple boxes before she caught the food scent and then she was all about finding it. It took her no time to figure out this new game and she had a great time with it. She is contented and sound asleep as we speak.

It was clear from watching her that she can tell the difference between source odor and lingering odor. She has no concern about pushing into and through the boxes, even though she quickly figured out to slow down so she didn’t trip on the boxes. Time will tell if she is able to make the association between birch odor and food. I’m just glad to have something we can do together.

Nosework is so cool.