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Sudden blindness in 7 year-old miniature Dachshund
The miniature Dachshund who (with his owner) lives with us suddenly
went completly blind this past weekend. It's possible that he was losing some vision gradually over time, but whatever he had left definitely disappeared over the weekend. He's fine otherwise and the vet thinks it's SARD. Vet recently had a dog with the same clinical picture that regained its sight after 3 days, but he said that if Raisin doesn't get his sight back after a couple of days he probably won't. I know that blind dogs can live full, happy lives, that you shouldn't move furniture or change their environment, use vanilla or other scent cues if necessary to help him find things, etc. So far he's doing very well; he initially had trouble finding the actual doorway when coming in from outside, but that's gotten much better. He wanders around some inside and bumps into people's legs, but does find what he's looking for. I'm looking for advice on preventing problems: this dog, with a typical mini Dachshund personality, lives with a lot of dogs that are taller than he is. He has never stayed out of their way (although he may be starting to learn to do this now) - - his preference was always to go outside and come inside first and snark at anyone who gets too close. We will, of course, modify routines for his safety. So far, he is fine when the other dogs come up and sniff him - - they may sense that something is different or wrong - - and it's essential that he not become fearful and snark when another dog touches him unexpectedly. Aside from praising him when we see that happen, does anyone have any suggestions? Is it likely that such a ballsy dog will modify his behavior so he doesn't get stepped on? Or, which is likely to happen first, him doing that, or the other dogs learning to watch out for him? I never thought we'd have the problem of him losing his confidence insert emoticon here. Mustang Sally |
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Sudden blindness in 7 year-old miniature Dachshund
sighthounds & siberians wrote in
: The miniature Dachshund who (with his owner) lives with us suddenly went completly blind this past weekend. I don't have any experience with blind dogs, but just wanted to say I'm sorry this has happened. Hope he either regains some sight or adjusts rapidly. -- Catherine & Zoe the cockerchow & Queenie the black gold retriever & Rosalie the calico |
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Sudden blindness in 7 year-old miniature Dachshund
In article ,
sighthounds & siberians wrote: Aside from praising him when we see that happen, does anyone have any suggestions? Not any suggestions, per se, but experience. Saber is blind and is basically a social retard, and other dogs tend to take an instant hate to him. What I have found, though, is that dogs are smart enough and social enough that they'll eventually figure out that Saber is weird and insane but completely harmless, and they get used to him. They even get used to him bumping into them, which is not something they usually have much tolerance for. We just went through it again with Slick, and it took about 2 weeks for Slick to understand how to deal with Saber (the one weird incident was hearing peculiar noises and finding Saber half-way up the stairs with Slick mounted on top of him - one of those situations that's easier to get into than out of, I guess). But the rules tend to be stricter around Saber - zero tolerance for any dominance play or pushy gestures on the part of Saber or the other dogs towards Saber, and that helps. -- Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis - Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community. |
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Sudden blindness in 7 year-old miniature Dachshund
On Wed, 8 Feb 2006 20:51:52 +0000 (UTC), ceb
wrote: sighthounds & siberians wrote in : The miniature Dachshund who (with his owner) lives with us suddenly went completly blind this past weekend. I don't have any experience with blind dogs, but just wanted to say I'm sorry this has happened. Hope he either regains some sight or adjusts rapidly. Thanks. You can see him making adjustments already; it never ceases to amaze me how adaptable dogs are. Mustang Sally |
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Sudden blindness in 7 year-old miniature Dachshund
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Sudden blindness in 7 year-old miniature Dachshund
In article ,
sighthounds & siberians wrote: Getting and keeping weight off him is going to be tricky now. Well, maybe the upside to this is that you can walk him in relatively small circles now and he won't get bored. Kidding! Saber *loves* going for walks and is really good about stopping and sitting when I tell him to, which is pretty much a prerequisite out here in no-sidewalks-and-not- much-traffic-but-what-traffic-there-is-really-hauls-land. He does like to walk along the edges of drainage ditches, though (he likes the smell), and fortunately they're shallow enough that a misstep isn't going to hurt him. He's a big fellow, though, and surface irregularities are going to be a much bigger problem for a little guy. There's always this: http://www.fattriathlete.com/images/Dog%20Walk.jpg blinddogs.com is a good resource for figuring out what you need to do around the house to make the dog's life easier, but I don't recall that they deal with dog/dog issues very much. Good luck with it. It's amazed me how well blind dogs can do, but I do find the interdog social issues to be more of a challenge than the problems of how he learns to negotiate his environment. -- Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis - Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community. |
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