My two 13 year old dogs have been ignoring me on walks, is it due to hearing loss?
The last few times my two 13 year old dogs have been off-lead, they have been ignoring me and my mother like crazy. My mother is seen as the dogs favourite and listen to her more closely, so much so that whenever she’s out the room for longer than two minutes one of them has to go check on her whereabouts, so the fact they are misbehaving so badly is very surprising. They are brother and sister, 13 year old Yorkie x Poodle x Lhaso Apso Mix.
A week or two ago they were let off lead at our usual dog park and the male, Odie, was so engrossed in sniffing that he lost sight of me and my mum once I called him, and he charged off to the nearest people he saw, who also looked absolutely nothing like us. As soon as I saw him run off I immediately chased after him as I knew he was confused. My mother proceeded to watch and do nothing, our other dog, Poppy, was with her. I was calling him the whole time and trying to catch up with him, he has absolutely no mobility issues for his age and is much faster than me, so I needed him to notice me as I wouldn’t be able to keep up with him. He then ran towards another group of people and then he noticed a man standing under a tree, which brought his attention towards where I was running after him. Once he saw that it was me, he let me pick him up and I was able to take him back to my mother, who never even moved a muscle.
His sister, Poppy just switches her ears off and runs about and does her own thing, she has always been like this but now it is worse. I’m not sure if she’s just more defiant in her old age or if she’s actually having trouble hearing us. Poppy has back leg problems so should she run, I have no problem catching her. They both have a history of doing as they please but never to this degree.
Odie has done this three times total now, last week on holiday at the beach and today at the same park from the first incident. I’m so scared of him getting confused again that I want him on lead at all times so he can’t run off. If I never caught up to him those times he would have continued to run till he ended up in a road. My mother sees no issue with their behaviour and just says that the leads with ruin their walk as they can’t run about as much. I’m scared of my dogs behaviour and annoyed by my mother’s negligence. If Odie pulled the same stunt with my mother when I’m not there.. I can’t bare to think what would happen.
I have never liked how much they ignore us on our walks but now it is ...