“Dora is almost completely deaf,” I told the soldier on the phone. “She’s standing here begging and Vid just dropped a stick on the floor behind here. It hit the floor and made a pretty loud noise and she did not react at all.”

“Yeah, well she’s not getting any younger,” he said.

“I know, I know. She seems to have lost some sight as well. I think it’s gotten worse. For one thing, she keeps walking into Lucky. She brushes up against him which I don’t think she’d do if she could help it.”

“Probably not.”

“So what do we do? Do we get her head gear?”

“I don’t think so. She does pretty good with her nose,” he said. ‘She can get around with that nose, we just can’t be moving the furniture.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. She does okay in the back yard. She does okay mostly, except for Lucky. I guess he’s what you call, furniture that moves. She’s happy though. She seems to be no longer pissed at you. Er… she’s back to her regular self so blind or not so blind, she’s feeling plucky.”

Dora is an old (Saturn) small animal (Virgo).