I met a dog with no eyes this week. Just two furry sockets, a bundle of happy joy, running around the yard, barking, playing, happy, coming up to me to say hello. I\’ve seen blind dogs before, but never a dog who had lost both eyes.
\”His name is Basher,\” his mum told me. The barking of a whole pack of dogs out the back punctuated our conversation. \”I worked in dog pounds and dog rescue for years. When he was a pup, he was blind, but he still had both eyes.\” All the time she spoke to me, Basher was one big happy wriggle, rubbing himself around my legs, begging for pats. Now and then he would run off down the couple of steps and around the yard, barking happily . (It was very nearly dinner time.) \”He had a glaucoma in one eye, and we had to have that one removed surgically, so he had a false eye on that side for a couple of years. Then the other eye got cancer in it, and at the smae time the vet was worried that the false eye wasn\’t doing so well, so we had them both removed…\”
We both watched him run around, free striding, happy as a lark.
\”I suppose you just can\’t move anything in the yard?\” I asked.
\”No – his biggest problem is if the other dogs are out in the yard at the same time as him. He can\’t see where they are going, and sometimes they run into each other,\” she explained.
\”I can\’t believe how happy he is!\” I said. \”I\’ve seen a few blind dogs over the years, mostly older dogs with severe cataracts, and they do really well as long as you don\’t move things about.\”
We moved on to deal with seeing some of her other dogs who needed veterinary attention. Basher didn\’t need a vet. He was as happy as could be!
The whole time I was talking about the two other dogs – taking a history, examining them, working out how best to help them out, Basher was running around the yard, tail wagging, coming back in (clearing the two steps as though they weren\’t even there), and coming over now and then with a friendly nose nudge for a pat.
I have noticed that it\’s the people who have a problem with their pets going blind, not the pets themselves. As long as you don\’t rearrange the house, or leave things in new places in the yard, they learn the whole layout, and will run around quite happily, all over the place. It\’s their people who have such emotional difficulty.
Dogs can teach us so much about how to accept challenging life changes, or pain and restriction. It never ceases to amaze me how they simply flow with whatever happens, and can often seem to be happy and engaged with life, and their people, even though they are in a lot of pain. So much so that often their people don\’t even understand how much pain they might be carrying in their bodies. Blindness is not a big emotional problem for your pet.
So- If your old (or even young) furry friend is losing their sight, it might not be the best thing in the world, but at the same time it\’s not the end of the world. It is absolutely not a reason to put your friend to sleep! (I have had more than one client over the years ask me, in tears, if they would need to put their friend to sleep because they were going blind.) Some problems are amenable to surgery (cataracts) – so if you want to do everything you can to save your pets vision, there are excellent ophthalmic veterinary specialists. This is super expensive though, and if you can\’t afford it, your pet can still be as happy as can be, and blind.
You do have to take some steps to make your home safe for them – settle on a layout you love, and then don\’t change it, or if you do, do it rarely, and take time to walk your pet around every single object, allowing him to feel where things are. Do the same if you have to move home. You can\’t let them off the lead. You may have to be careful how they interact with other pets, especially if they are hooligan puppies. Make sure you always tuck the chairs in under the table, be tidy, and consistent. Then they will not get blindsided (excuse the pun) by an unexpected object, and maybe hurt themselves.
The most important thing to know is that blindness is not the end of the road for your furry friends!