LIVING WITH A BLIND DOG

          In a short period of 4 days we crossed across all the five stages of grieving (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance) as brought out by Dr. Kubler Ross in her ground breaking book ‘On Death and Dying’. The news that our 7 year pet Labrador has turned blind was received with firm denial. My daughter though kept insisting that there was something seriously wrong with Laila as she was disoriented and bumping into walls and furniture. The guy who used to walk her also expressed concern over her inability to navigate her usual route. I looked at Laila and ordered her to come to me. She was slow to react but walked albeit slowly, carefully and uncharacteristically keeping her head low. She was able move around the dining table before stopping in front of me. “See, she can see, it’s just that she is a little unwell and may be feeling low and lethargy” I tried to pacify all. I however remained restless the entire night with an eerie feeling that the things are not OK.  Dogs have terrific sense of smell, touch and hearing. She was using them to move around. I shook off myself from the denial mode and took her out the first thing in the morning. It took me one hour to realize and make myself accept that she just could not see anything. Overpowering instincts to force me to at least believe that she can see partially could not be sustained in front of the overwhelming proof. The sight of her bumping and stumbling overwhelmed me with grief, sadness and regret.

It was so hard to accept that a healthy dog just turned blind overnight for no reason what so ever. A visit to the local vet confirmed our worst fears. It was not only blindness but it was permanent blindness. The next 24 hour were spent on social sites contacting various groups of blind dogs, dog lovers and vets. May be there could be some cure somewhere. The mixed feeling of anger and helplessness and guilt led way to sadness before I boldly accepted the fact and collected the family to confirm the devastating news.

As a military aviator for more than three decades I had been witness to many tragic events and a couple of them had me disclosing the worst possible news a family could hear in their lifetime. Trying to be as strong as possible I started, “It’s sad but Laila has gone permanently blind. The disease Sudden Acquired Retinal Degeneration Syndrome (SARDS) causes total destruction of rods and cones in the retina. The typical onset of SARDS is sudden and sometimes the dogs go blind within hours and that is what has happened to Laila. As of now there is no cure or treatment. I spent the entire night chatting with blind dog owners and dog lovers.  The good news is that SADS is not painful and they adapt quite well, with little training, to blindness due to their highly developed senses of hearing, touching and smelling. Unlike humans sight is not the primary sense in dogs and losing eyesight for a dog is akin to a human losing his sense of smell. I can see the tears in your eyes but grieving is normal and therapeutic and hence we can all have a tear break and assemble after one hour to discuss how to help Laila be the same playful, fun loving and naughty pet that she has always been.” 

After a short phase of grieving we got on to face the challenge. In our journey which has practically just started we discovered many interesting things, like dog’s eye, unlike humans, is not their primary sense organ and it comes third after smell and hearing. Loss of eyesight for a dog may thus be loosely comparable to a human losing his smelling power. Like us, dogs too use their five senses to perceive the world around but in a little different way. A large portion of our brain is dedicated to analyze the data captured by our eyes to make a sense of the world around us. For the dogs, however, the area of the brain that is used to analyze the smell is the largest. They perceive lot of information like direction, location and the movement of source by their smelling power. They can distinguish between thousands of smell and odors and can remember their precise locations. It is believed that dogs can detect hormones and can see aura as well as feel the intention of people through their magnificent nose. It won’t be wrong to say that while we see a story the dogs smell a story. They also have a great sense of hearing.

            Initially Laila was withdrawn, confused, depressed and visibly shaken. But gradually she started opening up and adapted well to her new dark world. As we live in a condominium on 5^th floor she spends most of her time inside the house and goes out, always, accompanied by a family member. She soon mapped the area inside the house and moved around without much difficulty. We help her by not making too many changes with furniture and other items and have fixed her place of eating. She took few days to learn to climb and jump down from our bed which is her favorite resting position. We trained her with few different commands especially for outside. Before any obstacle I tell her to ‘WAIT’ which is an indication for her that she need to stop as there is some obstruction. Thereafter I give gentle but continuous tugs on her leash meaning that she can move with caution. She smells her path and is able to easily negotiate minor obstacles along her routine evening and morning walks.

            While it was distressing initially but slowly we are coming to terms with her blindness. It’s correctly said that dog’s blindness is harder on the owner than on the dog. We are also learning from Laila the right attitude to face the problems. She seems to have no complaints against anyone. She is still happy with a rub and dances in joy at the very sniff of our presence.