Annie Keeps Staring At Me

Annie is having one of her Alzheimer moments. If you know Annie, you would expect her to have the quiet kind of Alzheimer's, where she just lies around and thinks she's on a cruise ship. But no, she is developing a more combative strain, where the last scene will be Annie in her housecoat in a standoff with the cops, getting gunned down on the front porch for threatening them with a blunderbuss.

This evening, she ran out the door in a panic when I opened it for some political door-to-doorers.  I had to catch her by the butt and pull her back in.  She continued to try to get out the door even when I was shutting it on her face. She wouldn't come when I called. She ran away when I told her to sit down for a moment and chill so she could eat dinner without hurling.

So I put her outside to "reset." Sometimes her brain gets fried on overdoses of sleep and she gets paranoid. Now she is outside, alternately pacing and trying to lie quietly on the grass. She keeps looking over at me, either hoping that I will decide she has calmed down enough for dinner, or possibly because she is wondering whether her stay of execution has arrived from the governor.

Oops, now she's barking at the kids next door.  (Annie doesn't bark.)

It's going to be a long, crazy night.

Update:  Annie seems back to "normal" this morning. She was able to eat and hobble around the block on her wrecked shoulders. (What are "shoulders" in dog anatomy? Withers? Dubloons? Loonies? Wait, that's Canadian money. "Shoulders" will do.) I swear, she will outlive us all.