Living with a blind dog: Our story. This is Poppy also known as ‘The Mudrat’, can you guess why?
She is ten years old now but when she arrived she was a tiny 7-week old bundle of fluff, barely bigger than a small guinea pig but she soon had the two older and much bigger boys in check. She was part of an unwanted litter found in a cardboard box with her brothers in December. As I sit shivering under a blanket with my warm hot water bottle and heating while writing this blog entry, I dread to think what could have happened to a box of tiny puppies if they hadn’t been found so soon.
She is a funny little dog, one blue eye, one brown, collie colouring but corgi sized legs and very ditzy. Everyone who meets her falls head over heels in love with her silly little ways. Life hasn’t been easy with the pint-sized Poppy. She had severe motion sickness and vomited in the car many a time as a pup; she could find water or mud or better yet muddy water in a desert. She is seriously noise phobic, which impedes walks as after about twenty minutes she panics and pulls to go home, that isn’t fun when you have a group of other dogs pulling to continue on their walk. But this entry isn’t about the unnecessary act of abandoning unwanted dogs, adopting from rescues or even behaviour issues. It is about life with a blind dog because Little Miss Poppy went blind a year ago, she can’t see a thing. It happened over a week or two; she started bashing into legs and bits of furniture but like I said earlier she is a little ditzy so we assumed it was just ‘Pop being Pop’. Then she started missing steps or not moving out of the other dog’s way or not even squeaking if you walked near her. She used to believe if you walked near her you were of course not going to see her ample bottom and fall straight on top of her. I am sure she used to think I was a drunk as I have never to my knowledge fallen on her but still she used to squeak.
A trip to the vet and our worries were confirmed: she was blind. I cried. How was I going to care for a neurotic dog who had now gone blind whilst living in a pack of fear aggressives and resource guarders who grump and moan if other dogs go near them at the best of times, let alone a ‘bull in a china shop’ ditzy-ninny-brain who had by now started bouncing off them?
Well after a little research I set about my new challenge.
1) All steps, corners and otherwise dangerous ‘sticky out’ or ‘upy downy’ areas were sprayed or wiped with lavender or olbas oil so she could learn to stay away from them.
2) Feeding time has always been well managed due to the issues some of the rest of the pack have, but I put strict rules in place and taught Poppy a ‘turn around cue’ which means she stops and turns around. And I will tell you something astonishing; it was a lot easier to teach her this new behaviour blind than it would have been if she could see.
3) I upped the basic training. STOP, sit, stay, leave – everything they previously knew was reinforced both with Poppy joining in and with her milling about like a grazing cow. We try not to laugh at her impairment, but it can be a little funny when she tries to join in not realising she is half a mile away and looking intently up at a bookshelf.
4) I put a cat bell on Poppy’s collar so that everyone else can tell when she is about to get near them. I considered putting one on everyone else so she could tell if they were near her but most issues occur with her disturbing their precious sleep – lazy blighters.
She has road marked the house so well now I often forget she is blind until she storms into my legs and leaves me with a massive bruise but no worse than most of my dog walking dogs and they have no excuse! Watching her climb the stairs I am sure she counts her way up them!
Peace has again rained down on the Poppy and Pals house; we get the odd issue as two of my pack lift their lips in silence, and obviously she can’t see that, but everyone has accepted the little odd-eyed nutter dog has just got a little nuttier, and we are cool with that.
Check out http://blinddogrescueuk.webs.com/ to help some blind rescue dogs.
