Yet another sign it's time.....

My hubby and I were chatting the other day about Rookie's sense of boundaries. In every home we have lived in that has been without fences, he always seems to know where the property lines are and never leaves them. Even when there are visitors - and we all know how much goldens love people - he would get up to greet them, his hind end wagging in the opposing direction of his tail, but he would always stop short of the property line. Lately he seems to have lost that sense.

Our home is in a slightly rural area. Tree'd property surrounds us on three sides. One lot has a footpath to the beach. For whatever reason, I'll have him in the back yard and as he is stumbling around the property line on that side, suddenly he starts to pick up speed and makes a break for it. He's not running, but he's moving. Of course I can't call him because he can't hear me. I have to run to catch up to him and if I am unlucky enough that he glances back at me before I reach him, he misconstrues my walking toward him for "we're going for a walk" and he continues walking at his accelerated pace until I'm able to catch up to him and lead him back home.

On the other side of our property is a treed lot between us and a park that we used to take him on his walks. He doesn't have the strength to make it there anymore. We have a patch of grass on that side of the yard that we have aptly named, "The Poo Patch". Over the past couple of weeks, he's taken the liberty of stepping behind the trees there, across the property line, to do his business. I stand nearby and keep an eye on him. The other day he took it a few yards further and as I watched him get caught up in the low lying branches of a tree and struggle to turn around, compounded by the depth of the snow, I wondered what he could possibly be thinking.

Yesterday he took it a step further. Same place, different scene. I have both dogs outside for their morning constitutional. It's very cold. Rookie is sniffing around the side of the yard. Ernie is busy rubbing his nose into the snow and just being Ernie. I see out of the corner of my eye that Rookie is starting to make a break for it behind the trees but at the same time, Ernie starts doing the tripod dance. Cold toes. I look back at Rookie and he is moving further and further into the bushes. I can't leave Ernie out there while I retrieve the retriever so I quickly scoop Ernie up, run him into the house and head out into the bushes. By the time I catch up to Rookie he has just about reached the park but he's somewhat tangled up in a thatch of prickly branches and looking somewhat disoriented. He sees me and relief washes over him as I come to his rescue. Once I get him out he heads in the wrong direction and every time I redirect him, he continues to move away from the house. He seems to have no sense of where home is anymore. I wish I knew what was going through his mind.

My mom told me a story about a family dog she had when she was young. The elderly dog disappeared so she went on a hunt for it which lead her down to the beach. She found him, lying beside some logs on the shore and he had passed away. He wandered away to die. Is this what Rookie is thinking or is Rookie trying to get to the park for one last walk? Only he knows.