November 25, 2013

The blind dog sees.

Sunny, Zeus

The dog on the left, Sunny, is blind. She gazes at Zeus. And into the sunset:

Sunny, Zeus

Sunny was rescued (while not yet blind) from Hurricane Katrina.

Sunny

Do you understand?

40 comments:

Michael K said...

Catalina Island has many blind foxes which come down at night to areas used by boat visitors to cook dinner. They are blind due to getting cactus spines in their eyes but they seem to do all right relying on smell.

MadisonMan said...

I understand that picture was not taken today.

m stone said...

The dog head tilt---a wonderful form of animal body language. So endearing, I adopted it myself years ago.

People wonder.

Heartless Aztec said...

And a blind dog gazes? Good on her I say... Girls can always spot the alpha's.

Sorun said...

Some video of how well the dog runs or walks around in the field would be interesting.

Guildofcannonballs said...

I overstand while standing under.

Anonymous said...

I think that dogs like that should be put down.
People do dogs no favors by letting them live when otherwise they would be dead due to lack of a sense.
There is a good chance that dog will wonder into traffic and cause and accident where someone is killed or seriously injured.
Then what? Is that what you call "caring".

David said...

i bet that dog has a comfort human.

Guildofcannonballs said...

I linked James Rosen many many times.


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/whefb_bill_buckley_playboy_and.html


It is all gone now.

My favorite article for years and not a trace I ever spoke of it. Because my paranoia has destroyed muh.

Anonymous said...

What are you talking about NotquiteBuckley?
Why didn't you save the article?

rehajm said...

Blind dogs are quite functional. At home they will nemorize the floor plan. Smell of the kitchen or potpourri or soap. The touch of rug or tile of hardwood floor. Know all the furniture, though the dining room chairs are a challenge. They lose track of where they are in their sleep, but they learn to leave themselves a marker before they doze off- butt in the gap of the couch cushions, head under the bed ruffle. etc.

Fine outdoors- sniffer works great. Sight is overrated. watch out for thorny bushes or icy snow banks and the eyes.

Happy to be with you.

Euthanasia would be a huge error.

rehajm said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Guildofcannonballs said...

F U C K

Dude was abiding and now this shit happens?

I ABIDED WITH GREAT ABIDERS!!!

Guildofcannonballs said...

I remember an article by maybe R. Reilly decrying a lack of sportsmanship, an article of Art Monk saying "fear" was his main motivation, and Rosen's masterpiece.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/whefb_bill_buckley_playboy_and.html

I remember linking it all over all the time. That memory was false according to the rich "hey we ain't evil or nothing" bunch I depend on more daily than daily users of Depends.

They got me by the mind.

Women only ever have me by the balls.

CWJ said...

We had a deaf ferret named Earl. He was one of the sweetest pets we ever had. He also had a congenital heart defect which eventually killed him as he entered old age.

Fortunately, my wife was there to hold and comfort him when he had his fatal heart attack.

There's no point to this comment other than to remember him.

The Godfather said...

Albert Payson Terhune, who wrote lots of fine books and stories about dogs (mostly collies, the breed I grew up with), had a story about a blind dog. After 55-60 years I don't remember whether the dog was born blind or was injured early in life, but I do remember this detail: When the blind dog first walked across the farm yard, there was a wheel barrow there that the dog bumped into. Thereafter, for the rest of his life, the blind dog always walked around the spot where that wheel barrow had been.

I hope SamWill (7:48 pm) doesn't really mean that such dogs should be put down.

MadisonMan said...

I think my dog is going deaf. Or he's just ignoring me when I tell him to move along and stop sniffing.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Pedestrian ism is failure, only in academic thought.

Racist, classist, queer-fearing other-than-thinking.

Anonymous said...

There is no point to this comment other than to say what CWJ said: Remember.

Anonymous said...

Would we accept federal 'death panels' to enforce when our pets need to be put down? I could continue but I would only belabor the metaphor.

Anonymous said...

I think I hit on something true. People will vote on their pets' behalf over the neighbor-to-be-named-later. I am good with this.

Anonymous said...

Grandma outlived her governmental usage period but I'll be damned if you put ol' Sparky down.

Mountain Maven said...

I love dogs unlike sam will. Tell us more about the Sunny and her owners.

rhhardin said...

The trouble with cosmological time having a beginning is verb tenses.

lemondog said...

Blind puppy and guide dog brother adopted after photo of them HUGGING goes viral

video

lemondog said...

And Sunny is beautiful.

Heartless Aztec said...

Zeus would tap Sunny in a heartbeat. Sunny would let him. Both would enjoy the experience and be happy in fulfilling life's prime directive. Unless some heartless bastard of a human being(s) played God and had them neutered.

Heartless Aztec said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ann Althouse said...

What fascinated me is the behavior that makes it seem like she can see. Ears and nose are oriented in the same way as eyes, so the face points at the object of interest. The dog's hearing and smell must be very good, so the mental picture of the world (in part remembered from when she could see) could be quite clear.

Ann Althouse said...

This dog was found, without owners after Katrina, but with 8 puppies. All 9 dogs were rescued and adopted.

The blindness came from an inborn retina defect.

lemondog said...

To Sam Will:

ppphhhhhllllllerrrrrrrrtt....

Have some sugar with those raspberries.

Heartless Aztec said...

Dogs see in black and white but smell in Technicolor. The opposite of humans who see in Technicolor but smell in black and white.

rhhardin said...

Blind dogs do fine.

Just don't move the furniture.

Scent is the point.

It can't be anything like a sense of smell, which is too clumsy for what happens.

The scents parse for a dog. There's this and this and this, with tenses and inflections.

John henry said...

A wink is as good as a nod to a blind dog?

John Henry

Meade said...

"Tell us more about the Sunny and her owners."

Zeus loves Sunny and stops whatever he's doing to run over and greet her whenever he sees her. Owners, S. & J., like most people we meet at the park, are a super nice couple.

S. helped her girlfriend who fostered Sunny and the puppies 8 years ago. The puppies were so young at the time that their eyes were still not opened. The girlfriend kept one of the pups and S. & J., who had fallen in love with her, adopted Sunny who was approximated to be 2 or 3 years old at the time. A few years later, they had a family reunion on Mothers Day in which all but one of the grown pups showed up. Everyone is reported to have had a terrific time.

Sunny recognizes my voice and comes to me on those days when we fortuitously show up at the dog park at the same time. I keep repeating her name at a constant moderate volume so she can gauge my distance without running into me when she gets there. And then I give her a little peanut butter treat or a small milk bone and everyone smiles and/or wags a tail, we all walk the mile around the park together while Sunny and Zeus have their conversation and S. & J. and I have ours.

lemondog said...

'Sunny' is the perfect name for her.

Phaedrus said...

My wife claims she has a deaf husband so what's the big deal about a blind dog?

Generating sympathy doesn't minimize the resources needed for dog input or the impact on the environment of dog output.

madctysue said...

I am the owner of Sunny. Anyone (Sam Will) who recommends putting a dog down because they are blind has never had nor loved a dog. Sunny adores my husband and I, and is as lively at 11 as she was at 2. We are her "guide people" and use phrases such as bump, careful, stop, to keep her from running into things. But she does run into things, and will continue to do so. Otherwise, she is very healthy and happy and will live a long time. We have learned so much from her!

Meade said...

madctysue! Welcome. And thanks for your great comment.

Alex said...

People of Sam Will's ilk probably thought Hitler's euthanasia program was a swell idea too.