Genny the Magic Puppy

(That is the nickname my mother gave my dog when she was still a baby. I'm not too sure of its origin, but it may have something to do with Puff the Magic Dragon. Incidentally I've always thought that "MAGIC Dragon" was a bit redundant for a mythological animal. Not necessarily so for my dog though I suppose.)

Genesis is making a reappearance here on M&C. It's been a while since I talked about her, because mostly I don't spend a lot of time around her. I'm always surprised a bit when I come home and realize once again how senile she is becoming.



Her strange behaviour is not helped by the fact that by dog-law she is legally blind. Her cloudy eyes as far as we can tell only pick up shadows of movement and objects only once they are about 2 inches away. She flinches a lot...



... even when you try to take her picture with the flash on.
She walks into and trips over things. You have to carry her up whole flights of stairs if you want her to leave the main floor of the house. She spends a lot of her time on our hardwood floors working her way out of the splits (I just recently witnessed the 4-WAY SPLITS, something which she cannot get out of by herself, which she must be lifted out of). And we've built a handicap ramp up to our backdeck... for our handicap dog, who otherwise would do all her business on the deck. Sometimes she does anyway.
At times seeing this creature who I have grown up with starting to fail, to become more and more limited in what she can do is heartbreaking. But in many ways, she has never been more engaging. She's frickin' hilarious. It's as though after a lifetime of doing what she was told, she's trying to turn the tables on us. We can't decide whether her hearing is failing too, or whether she's just decided to start ignoring us. Her obedience is so selective that it seems more and more as though she's just becoming a crotchety old woman with an "I don't FEEL like it right now" attitude.
She pretends to want to go outside and then when you get up from dinner to open the door for her she looks at you like "What are you DOING you crazy person? I don't want to go out THERE. It's COLD out there. I was just standing here.... dum dee dum."
Sometimes I get the distinct impression that she's laughing at me.



Now that she's older, she doesn't bark like a madwoman when people come to the door. She doesn't pee on the floor, or knaw on woodwork. My mother no longer buys carpets which will disguise the things the dog does on them, but rather, buys carpets "that go well with the dog."



She smells. She has warts, and some indescribable quality to her fur which my brother calls "Genny's cheese." She eats things in the backyard which my mother has dubbed "poopsicles." Such is the state of canine octagenarianism. And she's absolutely gorgeous, and definitely this week's cutest thing ever. Possibly next week's too. Anyway, she always ranks.