Rolling Dog Farm Blog

We have a couple in Missoula who are considering adopting our handsome boy Buddy.  They know he came to us as a blind dog from Spokane Animal Control.  Buddy had progressive retinal atrophy, in which the retinas degenerate over time.  However, in the two years that Buddy’s been here, we — that would be Alayne and me, regular volunteers, and now our employees Beth and Kathryn — noticed how exceptionally well Buddy was navigating around.  We began to wonder whether his eyesight had somehow improved, but couldn’t figure out how that could be.  I began to doubt our own assessment of his blindness.

When we open the door at Widget’s House, Buddy zooms right in, heads straight down the line of crates and finds his own, then waits if his crate door is closed.  If it’s open, he darts right in.  (We have to show our other blind dogs where their crates are, then guide them in.)  When we let him out in the morning into the dog paddock, he bolts through the gate like he can see exactly where he’s going.  I can’t remember the last time I ever saw him walk into anything.  I mean, if you watched Buddy you just wouldn’t think he was blind any longer.

Well, I decided that before we adopted him out, we owed it to Buddy’s potential adopters to get another evaluation of his vision so they would have the full picture and knew what to expect.  And WE wanted to know how his vision could have improved.

So today Alayne drove Buddy over to Helena to see Dr. Brenda Culver, our primary care vet who is also very talented at ophthalmology.  Her assessment:  Buddy is completely blind.  Can’t see a thing.  Brenda did several different tests and none indicated any visual response at all.  Buddy might see the difference between light and dark, but that was about it. 

I was astonished to hear this.  How can he zoom around like he can see where he’s going?  Now, all of our blind animals navigate pretty well — they create a ‘mental map’ of their environment and then follow this map — yet Buddy is at a different order of magnitude in terms of capability.  Brenda attributed it to an incredibly keen nose and pure smarts.  Yes, Buddy had memorized his familiar environment like any blind animal, but he took his navigation skills to an entirely new level. 

I’m sure that once Buddy gets into a new environment he won’t do nearly as well at first, but soon he’ll create another mental map.  And before long, he’ll be doing as well as he is here today.

(Click on photo for larger image.)