Living with an old deaf dog is like gazing into a mirror that follows you from room to room, verandah to kitchen, up the garden path and back again.

Here he is now, standing in the kitchen, looking out the window. I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking – what am I doing here? Did I want something?

I know because I do that.

All our tunnels are narrowing, but I think we are rapidly approaching the end of Prince Finski’s passage through this world.

Here he is now, trying to get up off the floor.

Push, squirm, and work those glutes and back muscles. Push through the pain barrier. One last push, and yes, he’s standing up, shaking his head and looking astonished at the world.

That’s also me getting up off the couch.

Now his splayed legs and hunched back are shuffling to the back door. He’s thinking — I need to see what’s outside. Maybe it’s different. The door opens, and it’s not different. The world is the same as it always was. Familiar, predictable. But he needs to check. Just in case that tree has moved, or the bush has become a city. Every evening, as the light fades, he has to check these things.

I do these things, too — albeit in a different way. I stare out the window and let my mind drift into the past. I look over the fence and out through the trees, and I see my children running through the long spindles of native grass, yellow in the sunlight. They’re building cubbies from fallen sticks and laughing with their friends. Old doggie friend Billy is there too, barking excitedly and Zena lopes along behind them like a panther in the striped shadows.

The mind and the body play tricks as we age. Sometimes we’re 10 and screaming on a fairground ride, then we’re 18 and dancing madly into the dawn, then we’re 30 and running on the beach with a kite and two small children, then we try to get up off the couch in a hurry, and we’re nearly 70.

I think old dogs must feel this, too, because Finksi still twitches in his sleep. Sometimes, I wonder if he has an inside age where he’s a pup and chasing ducks at the billabong.

I think older people have an outside age where our backs and feet hurt and an inside age where we’re still dancing madly.

My inside age is 21 where I’m continually riding my motorcycle a hundred miles through the pouring rain to greet my Colombian girlfriend as she steps off a plane after a month in Bogota, and she is going to throw her arms around me and kiss me to within an inch of my young loose-limbed life.

Inside, I’m still that naïve, hopeful, dumb and slightly terrified person who lives life with gritted teeth through a perfect storm. Then suddenly, I can’t remember my Google password, and I have to get up off the couch. It’s then I realise I’ve just about lived my threescore and ten because my back and my brain tell me so.

In the end, people and dogs are all moving through time like a river. When we were young, the river was easy because it was shallow and narrow, and memories were light and didn’t linger much.

As we age, the river becomes wide and deep and more difficult to swim, and our memories are heavier. Sometimes, they float away into the present, and you find yourself wondering why you went into the kitchen. That’s when it helps to have a mirror.

Well, that’s my theory.

I call it The Wandering Old Dog and The Mirror Theory — or WOT? For short.

John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.

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Sunday, 14th April 2024

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