My dog is going blind. Any advice for me?

[Anonymous]

My dog is not old, just has a retinal disease. The vet recommended reading “Blind Devotion,” and watching my dog very closely around decks, pools, small children and other dogs. I haven’t found any training classes for people with blind dogs. Does anyone have any tips? Any recommendations for a good place to board a blind dog if I need to travel?

[Anonymous]

For boarding recommendations, I’m in Montgomery County.

[Anonymous]

No experience with blind dogs, but plenty with blind horses. My advice is that some animals adapt VERY well to being blind, and others struggle, based on their personalities and temperament. I had one blind horse that was happy as a clam as long as he knew his pasture (and I had to be very careful about which other horse to turn him out with because he could not see kick warnings, etc.)

Another gradually became 90% blind, and he did not adapt well at all. He would startle at random sounds and bolt in a blind panic, running into buildings and fences. I euthanized him before he broke a leg or killed someone.

You know your dog, and keep an eye out for which type he's going to be. If you see your pet devolving into anxiety and fear, the kinder thing is to euthanize. On the other hand, your dog may well turn into a happy go lucky, enjoying life boy who you can train to do well even in public.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the response. Luckily, he’s very calm, content and friendly. He just walk into things and takes stairs very cautiously. He’s a sighthound, so I guess now I have an explanation for his extremely low prey drive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the response. Luckily, he’s very calm, content and friendly. He just walk into things and takes stairs very cautiously. He’s a sighthound, so I guess now I have an explanation for his extremely low prey drive.

I would start teaching him voice commands on walks while he still has some vision. Like “step UP!” and “step DOWN!” So he starts associating those actions with words. When he goes fully blind it’ll help him know what to expect.

[Anonymous]

I started cuddling with my dog a whole lot more after he lost his eyesight. I wanted him to know I was there for him. We also took him for walks along areas that he loved and was familiar with and let him sniff to his heart's content. Dog's sense of smell is so much more deeper than ours.

[Anonymous]

Do you have more than one dog? If not this will be irrelevant, but if you do, what I wished I'd done with my previous generation of dogs was train the sighted one to go find and bring back the blind one. It was his instinct to go find his elder blind buddy and grab his harness anyway, but I should have put a command on it, particularly for when we were out in the yard in the dark.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have more than one dog? If not this will be irrelevant, but if you do, what I wished I'd done with my previous generation of dogs was train the sighted one to go find and bring back the blind one. It was his instinct to go find his elder blind buddy and grab his harness anyway, but I should have put a command on it, particularly for when we were out in the yard in the dark.

We don’t have another dog, but I’ve contemplated getting one so he can have a buddy. I’d love to have one of those heartwarming stories about one dog guiding the other, but how would I know whether a given dog would be good about that before adopting it?

I’m also kind of nervous because I’m going through a divorce and may need to move. It stresses me out to think about my poor dog trying to acclimate to a home and stairs he never saw.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I have started to work on more voice commands.

[Anonymous]

I had a cat who survived being hit by a car and was blind as a result. Here are the things I found helpful. Don’t move furniture, they can memorize placement of furniture and can get around better if the doesn’t change. Helps to have colors of floors and walls different (dark vs light colors), if they will be able to have some ability to see color differences, keeps them from banging into walls. Gates around steps.

[Anonymous]

Our dog went blind. SHe did surprisingly well. The one thing in our house that we had to change was to block off a long flight of stairs. We started boarding at a well known vet hospital on Rockville Pike because they have individual dog cabins and a vet hospital attached. Initials DB PR. I'm blocked from writing it out. I guess Jeff thought there were sock puppets but truly it was a big problem to board her after she declined because what we previously looked for was cage-free and that no longer worked and most small vet hospitals did not have much besides individual kennels where the dogs were locked up all day.

[Anonymous]

Maybe get him a little blind dog face guard. Example:
https://www.dsa.org/vision-dsa-sales-and-marketing-conference/

[Anonymous]

Thank you for these suggestions and the boarding recommendation. I appreciate it.

[Anonymous]

I’ve looked at some of the “halos” for blind dogs to keep them from bumping into things, but they’re almost all for smaller breeds. My dog is a greyhound, so he’s 75 lbs and has a very long snout. I’m honestly not sure those will work on him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dog is not old, just has a retinal disease. The vet recommended reading “Blind Devotion,” and watching my dog very closely around decks, pools, small children and other dogs. I haven’t found any training classes for people with blind dogs. Does anyone have any tips? Any recommendations for a good place to board a blind dog if I need to travel?

We dealt with a blind dog for years; same issue, not old just a retinal disease. You definitely do need to be very careful; when a blind dog is startled they may lash out. We couldn’t walk him after awhile, but we had a fenced back yard where he could wander. We never boarded him; we would hire someone to come over and take care of him. Can’t imagine how stressful boarding would have been for him. Good luck!