Piranha… my 15 year old Bichon Frise is mostly blind, completely deaf and missing all but 11 teeth. She is not in love with our town. Dogs viciously bark at her through their gates…she can’t hear them, so it is even more disturbing when they try to nip at her through the bars of their front yard prisons.
Most dogs never go for a walk and when they do, they are free to pee and poop anywhere they want and no one bothers to pick it up. Piranha enjoys all of the nasty smells, but that’s about it.
Now, as a dog raised in California for her formative years, the beach is her dream spot. She feels joy there. You can see her feet start to dance and her nose intensely sniff the air. In her younger years, she could play for hours on the beach. She would bury her ball and then dig it up. It caused her to eat a lot of sand and then hours later after some distress, she would poop out sand castles.
We no longer let her eat sand. She no longer can see a ball to play catch, but she still loves to roll in the sand.
We live a 5 minute drive from the beach. Piranha gets at least one weekly outing to the ocean. Before our eyes, she becomes a puppy again. A crazy, white fluff ball romping in the surf and chasing smells.
I am really happy that she will get to live out her golden years near a place that brings her such happiness. I hope one day, I am so lucky.