Catching up

Oy, it's hard to go back to work after vacation. Brain doesn't work right, and I just want to go back to wandering aimlessly and eating out all the time. Sigh.

It's been really hectic, so I haven't posted in ages. Sorry about that.

Our primary thing this week is that we finally figured out the reason for Uulaq's demented weirdness -- she's been barking all the time, very anxious, picking fights, doesn't want to go outside..we discovered yesterday that she's pretty much blind.

We knew she was having some issues with night vision, and some blurring in her lenses due to age, but we had no idea it was this bad. She gets around ok, and other than being tentative about the stairs, doesn't seem to have any problems in the house. But she's startling easily, and gets freaked out by fast motion or the other dogs. When our vet shined light in her eyes, she had almost no pupil reaction - in a dark room and very bright light, there was a tiny bit, but it's like she's just seeing light and dark right now. Poor doglet.

She apparently can get around ok by smell, but if the routine is interuppted, she flips out a bit because she can't keep track of things. She had started to bark at the bottom of the stairs sometimes at night before coming up (before we left for vacation) and we figured it was probably taht she wasn't seeing them too well and wanted us to get up and turn lights on. I can only imagine that the stairs are just a black hole. It also explains her frequent snapping at Rowan - suddnely, he's just there and she can't see him properly.

We're not sure what caused this (beyond age), so we'll keep an eye on things and test her for glaucoma and retinal problems as we go forward.