The saga of Bentley:
We fostered Bentley a little over a year ago, we were foster failures 3 months later. He was estimated to be 8-10 years old. We knew when we adopted him that his hearing and eye sight were not great, but now, by our observation...he probably has lost about 98-99% of his eye sight and close to that much of his hearing.
He is so sweet and such a delight and has always been so spunky, so it is sooo sad now to watch him bump into everything and be so unaware of where he is. But he still has his spunky spells...love it! We keep a very close eye on him. We have had a deaf Rescued Boston before, but this is the first time we will have had a blind one (and deaf at the same time). Bentley still has lots of joy and love in him.
He has wobbly legs. He falls down sometimes, but he doesn't seem to notice his shakiness nor his near-deafness. We go for
1/2 mile long walks every day. We always follow the same path. Stopping at this one house to visit his sighted friend who some times is able to join us on our walks.. A very pleasant time for both humans and dogs..
He is full of personality and determination. I bet he will adjust and not let this get him down for long! If he doesn't notice we won't tell him. Oh, undoubtedly Bentley will have truckloads of love and joy to give for the rest of his life. he is a determined dog and he is not letting this get him down so far...it is just so tough watching him.
I thoroughly understand and empathize with others of you that have a blind and or deaf dog and how difficult it is to watch your baby bump into things a...It's not easy by no means. We watch his eye pressure isn't too high. Sometime glaucoma comes along with the cataracts. Glaucoma is painful but can be controlled with drops.. We almost forgot to add we are checking out to see if he could very well be a candidate for cataract surgery.
We humans, have trained ourselves not to move things about in his environment. He almost knows where things are. We did close off the dangerous places that he might wander into. and are teaching Bentley a word that means "stop", if he is going to run into something. My friend just used "Wait", which her dog knew already.
We did other things to, like putting foam padding on things that were sharp or quite dangerous! We are even using use smell too. Essential oil wiped on certain things warns him they are there.. And we also a mat by the back door and front door, each one with a different texture. He will know where he is because he feels it!
NOTE another positive side affect for even us humans.... when the storms knocked out the electricity a couple days back we discovered we too were able to keep from running into walls and doors etc while we searched for our flashlights and the batteries we should have already had in them. (I know! I know what your fur-friends out there are thinking "dumb humans")
Because we read that when they are blind & deaf there is a tendency to withdraw and live in their own world. So we are also looking at taking him on more car rides and visits to the park and the dog food stores and our groomer. We think by having the same routines for each visit and same words he will soon learn where we are going...
We realized blindness isn't the end of the world for the dog -they live in the moment without regret. They adapt to blindness well, when the owner has a positive attitude and does not let dog feel the her own sadness. Blind dogs see with their hearts (they love more deeply because they rely on their seeing-eye person, and they are more sensitive to the emotions of their owner even to the point of telepathy).
Blind dogs rely first on their sense of smell, then hearing, then touch, then sight. It's the opposite with people. Our sense of sight is the most important sense for us. This is why we feel so terrible for the dog. We imagine what it would be like for us. So, knowing what I know now, that blind and even blind/deaf dogs do very well, that they compensate for the loss of vision and hearing and go about exploring there new world just fine. It takes a little while till they figure it out, but they do well mapping their surroundings.
We want to stay positive and encourage Bentley to learn new things, especially talk to him and use words to describe what he can't see. Like "step" and "careful". We want Bentley to trust that we will help him.
It should not be too hard for him to adjust to living as a blind dog. It will be harder for us humans.