Losing your mind

Here’s something that happened recently. My dog, Billy Jr., is starting to show signs of dementia. He’s 13 years old and by dog standards he’s pretty old. He used to spring around our living room with the zoomies but he’s having less zoomies. He used to run during walks when I walked a bit fast but it’s been a while since he ran.

It started with some late night barkings. The thing is, Billy Jr. is a barker. He barks at literally everything. On top of that we have some wildlife like racoons and opossums strolling through our backyard at night and Billy obviously doesn’t appreciate that.

But the barkings became too consistent and the more he barked, the more it was an anxious whimper. So after waking up at 2-3AM for the second week in a row, I took him to the vet to see if there’s a health problem.

The vet said there may be some joint pain but nothing too serious, so it should go away with some painkillers. For the first few days the painkiller seemed to work, but after that he started doing it again.

What was going on? I couldn’t figure it out so I kept on googling for this mystery dog ailment. Then it hit me; maybe he’s having dementia? I got the idea when he was dozing off in the middle of the day while standing.

Come on bro, you’re spending the entire night barking so of course you’re tired during the day. But why not sleep on one of the many beds? He would just stare blankly into the space and collapse because he just completely dozed off.

The search results for dementia was pretty spot on with how Billy was acting. So I talked to Gunila, my vet friend and vet coach, who gave me some nutritional and behavioral suggestions. Thankfully now that we know what we’re dealing with, the suggestions have helped a lot and he’s at least able to sleep through the night.

But this whole ordeal made me reflect on what it’s like to cultivate and grow the mind, to lose the mind.

My Buddhist teacher has many dharma talks around the topic of dementia and caring for people with dementia. Something he says is that dementia is also a part of life and what can happen to the brain. Since it is always something that can happen, there is no reason for us to be surprised by it; the only reason we are surprised by it is because we are deluded into this idea that somehow we are immune to it.

He tells caretakers the most important thing is that they are caretaking from a happy perspective.

He tells caretakers the most important thing is that they are caretaking from a happy perspective. You will have to repeat a lot of things to them, you will have to do a lot of repetitive tasks; he tells them to treat it like a Buddhist prayer.

Anything you say in repetition is basically the same thing as Om Mani Padme Hum; if you can recite that 1080 times as a prayer, why not repeat the same thing for your loved one?

We do 108 bows every day; if we can do that, why not do the same repetitive tasks for your loved one? That is sort of how I’m looking at all the adjustments I have to make for my dog. It is part of my prayer, my dog is not getting old or losing his mind to make me suffer.

I remember my rabbit. I ran away from that responsibility when things got hard. I know what it’s like to regret from not doing what I should have and could have done. Compared to the crippling weight of that escapism, loving care is not only easy but it actually invigorates me. It tells me there’s something I can do for my loved one.

So I’m witnessing the slow but steady decline of my dog. Man, was he a rowdy one. The good news is he doesn’t have that many physical ailments so maybe with the supplements he’ll still be able to have a good long life. Given that he had a genetic defect that was supposed to take his life away at 3 years old, 10 years is already a really nice second life.

May all sentient beings be liberated from suffering.

Billy Seol
July Life Coach
julylifecoach.com