The "Eyes" have it

Our dog is pretty old, 13 or 14 I think. His eye sight is very poor. He either has some pretty severe cataracts or he's pretty much blind. It's amazing to watch him get around. When he's outside he follows the edge of the side walk to keep his bearings. When he comes in he follows the permiters of the rooms until he get to where he is going. His hearing isn't too good either but he knows the sound of his food being dumped into his dish. If he isn't near the laundry room where his food bowl is located he'll run across the kitchen until he hits the carpet in the living room. Then he turns around and can find his way to the laundry room which was is opposite side of the kitchen from the living room.

However there are a number of times when following a familiar path for the dog doesn't always work out so well. He's been known to get off track on edge of the side walk and end up in the neighbors yard outside. He misjudges how close he is to the step coming into the house and fall of the side of the stoop. And more often than not, runs into walls or furniture when trying to navigate his way through the house. Although it's not really funny, I can't help but chuckle sometimes when he endures one of his mishaps.

I've noticed that I've become very dependant upon my contacts or my glasses to see anything that is small. Often when I get home from work, after wearing my contacts all day I'm ready to get them off my eyeballs. Problem is I don't always put my glasses on, as a matter of fact I rarely put them on. I can see distance ok so I don't think about it until I try to read something. I get so irritated then becuase I can't see it. My arm is only so long and even stretching my arm out as far as it will go doesn't help. Arrrggggghhhhhhh!!!

Last night I decided to watch a free On Demand movie on our cable system. I went upstairs to our bedroom and turned on the tv and climbed into bed to watch a comedy remake of the 60 series "I Spy." The movie got started and I couldn't hear it so I picked up the remote to turn the volume up. I don't like remotes in the first place and this new remote that came with our HD digital cable package has 10,000 buttons on it. Of course I couldn't see any of the buttons. My glasses were downstairs. So I got out of bed and ran down to get my glasses, went back upstairs, turned the volume up and settled in.

Not long after that Lori came home. She got into bed and we chatted a little and went back to watching the movie. Before she got home I had the lamp in our room turned on but it had gotten turned off when she got into bed. It wasn't long after she came to bed that she dozed off. The tv seemed a little loud for someone who was trying sleep so I thought I should turn it down.

I picked up the remote. I could see even less on the remote now because there was no light on in the room. I was too lazy to get up and go get my glasses off the dresser. So I thougth I could just remember which button I pushed before to turn the volume down. Not so much. I changed channels and and displayed a few other random things before I finally felt my way to the volume. Later when the movie ended and I wanted to go back to regular tv, I had another round of volume increases and a variety of other displays before I finally found my way back to regular tv.

Although I'm often amazed at how the dog does find his way around, I do feel bad for him when he falls off the landing or plows into a wall inside the house. I wonder if he was feeling sorry for me last night when I couldn't navigate the remote on the tv? Or was he just laughing at me too?