What a Blind Dog Sees, Part 2

Part 1 covered Inky’s uncertain backstory and roller coaster of health issues.  Today, we’ll talk about how we’ve trained through blindness, and what we’ve learned about obedience, perception, trust, and control.

Obedience & “Disobedience”

What matters to blind Inky is not what matters to sighted me.  Tonight I was calling Inky up the porch steps as friends got into a van and drove away.  Inky seemed to be disregarding my call, remaining at the base of the steps.  I watched her head and ears, though, and I saw that she was listening for the people loading into the van.  Navigating the stairs is tricky for crippled Inky, even before she was blind, and she can’t concentrate on climbing and listening at the same time.

Listening for others’ locations is important because she is unstable, and if another dog or person brushes her on the stairs, she might well fall.  She prefers to ascend solo.  So she “ignored” my call to listen for a safe time to respond; she came a moment later, assured the stairs would remain open.

Perception

I am a professional trainer.  I am faculty for a very good trainer certification program.  I have competed in a variety of venues which prohibit double-commands.  I like to think smugly that my cues are typically pretty clean.

However, once Inky could no longer see us, we realized that some of our everyday cues, at least, aren’t quite as clean as we thought.  Apparently I gesture the dogs out of my way more often than I say, “Move;” it’s not quite fair to get annoyed when Inky misses that cue.

On the other hand, she knows quite a lot of environmental cues and household sounds (all my dogs know the difference between me walking away from a running or hibernating computer; they will either follow me or wait lazily for my quick return accordingly).

Tolerance

Anyone who’s followed any of my training blogs knows about Laev.  Laev is my high-octane Schutzhund-adoring young Doberman, whom I once took to the vet with the sole symptom of, “She walked down my hall and I’ve never seen her do that before.”  Laev is not known for her delicacy or tact.

Laev has become a different dog around Inky.  She pauses to allow Inky to get through a door or off the stairs, she goes around Inky instead of brushing past her, and she no longer snarks when Inky bumps rudely into her.  Inky is slower than the other dogs to make her way through the yard to toilet; when she finally returns and waits at the door, inside Laev will go to the door and bark once to alert me.

I have not trained any of these things; Laev has chosen them herself.  I am not sure if Inky is aware of this effort, but I like to think that she is.  I am surprised and fascinated by Laev’s care; there’s not much in it for her, as she and Inky have never seemed particularly close.

Echolocation

We carefully kept Inky away from the main stairs in the house.  There are a few steps into and out of the house, which she had to learn to manage, but we feared she would hurt herself if she tried the stairs to the second floor.  The installed gate is at the base of the stairs (courtesy of Jezroc Metalworks), and if she went to the top and then fell, it could be disastrous.

our lovely gate to the tricky stairs

But on the rare occasions I sit down to watch a movie, I do it upstairs, and I felt guilty leaving Inky downstairs alone.  So one night when Jon came home, Inky and I had a surprise for him.

I called Inky up the stairs (the Dobermans already at the top), and tapped the wooden step to indicate where the stairs began.  Inky was able to climb without much more difficulty than before; she just had to pause to feel her way forward at the top, not quite sure where the stairs ended.  That wasn’t so hard, though, and then I blocked the top with a 24″ exercise pen which the Dobermans could circumnavigate if they wished.

When we were ready to descend, I told Inky to wait and then removed the temporary gate.  Then I called her, tapping the top step, and cued, “Downstairs” (a previously-known cue to descend).  She hesitated, felt her way forward, and found the edge.  I backed down the stairs before her, tapping each step audibly as she slowly felt her way, letting her choose her own balance and speed.  The sound was critical; it was her only way of determining what her next step would be, and crippled Inky has always had to work much harder at stairs than the average dog.  At the base, I cued, “Bottom!” and tapped a line straight out on the floor, so that she could hear the level instead of descending taps.

If Inky stumbles on the stairs, it is only in navigating that last step, the trickiest of the lot.  But she prefers to do it herself than to have physical help, where she feels less in control.  Control is everything when anxiety is present, and Inky is learning more and more control over her dark world.  We don’t allow her on the stairs without human supervision, but she can navigate them when she needs to.

Fair Warning

Cues can be information as well as requests, as with the stairs, and Inky sometimes needs additional information.  She receives eye drops to combat inflammation, but as she can’t see the dropper coming, it can be pretty startling to suddenly be struck in the eye.  I made a habit of saying, “Eyes,” just before releasing the drop, and now she sits beautifully to receive her medication.  I really have to get video of it sometime!

What Inky Sees In Life

Most of all, Inky displays amazing bravery and plucky attitude — even while going blind so quickly, she never became very inhibited or fearful, but kept right on trying to live normally (one reason we didn’t catch her increasing disability immediately!).  Several visitors have even thought her sighted, even after we told them otherwise, because of her willingness to wander about the yard, run across open areas, and pick her way through the furniture.

But we don’t move that furniture!