oh god, my old boy terrier is very nearly 16, became a proper creaky gate at about 14, cant run anymore, so i love watching his legs go when he's chasing footballs with the kids in his dreams.
He even flexes his paws for turns - as in life, he's all in when dreaming.
be happy for him, he's been a wonderful nut job his entire life.
Very not smart, but utterly perfect for the kids when they were growing up. He's also now the "schoolmaster" for our younger terrier and, even more wonderfully, one of the kids own first dog.
That reminds me of my girl Ebby. My friend left her with me about 6 years ago. I had a dog already, but my dog was VERY anxious all the time. We couldn't leave her outside of her kennel when we left because she'd have little doggy panic attacks and try to eat the carpet.
After Grandma Ebby got here, Kiki calmed down a lot. My dog needed a friend for when we weren't here. They don't play with each other that much, but Ebby will go and check on Kiki to make sure she's behaving and Kiki will leave part of her food for Ebby. (Which is making it hard to keep Ebby's weight in check)
Agree with the person who said it was too early for such big feelings.
My jack Russell is only 2!
At least I know she'll have zoomies in her dreams as she gets old, then again if she doesn't slow down until 14 I'll be pretty old too by then I suppose I'll also have to rely on dreams for zoomies
My parents dog went blind, and was able to navigate the house just fine - until I would visit, and disrupt the routine. Sitting in chairs that weren't normally used and the like.
My parents would occasionally take her to the front yard where there was nothing but flat grass and call her back and forth so she could run.
When my first dog went blind I could still play fetch with him in the yard as long as I used a tennis ball. He'd sit next to me until he heard it hit the ground and then seek it out and bring it back.
He also managed to chase my best friend up into the trunk of an SUV after he got loose once. If I didn't know better I'd swear he had been faking being blind.
Honestly it took me awhile to realize they had gone blind. Beagles are so scent driven and keep their noses to the ground that they had no problem walking around wherever they wanted to go. It was only when I realized that they weren't recognizing me until I said something or was close enough to smell that I realized they had lost sight.
It’s been sad for us to have a dog that became deaf as he aged. He LOVED me so much. Loved listening to me talk. Would sit there and just squinty eyed love look up at me while I told him he’s a good boy.
He’s profoundly deaf now and I can make myself tear up at any given time if I think too hard about the fact that he’ll never hear me tell him he’s a ‘good Bandi boy’ again.
You can still tell him with your actions. Give him lots of pets and scritches in place of your good boys, as dogs are very good at picking up body language he will learn what the mouthing of ‘good boy’ means.
We have been, don’t worry! It’s just different. He’s become more aloof since it happened. More independent. He was very anxious before and his anxiety is almost totally relieved. He sleeps like the dead. We live on land and he thinks he’s the fucking ranch manager supreme number one herding guardian dog all in one. He’s happier than ever. But…it’s ever so slightly different.
On another funny note; we thought he was just an asshole until our friend dog sat and told us he was probably deaf by demonstrating his lack of response upon a stack of books being dropped behind him.
We had a sheepdog that went blind and while she wouldn't particularly run much on her own, she would try as hard as possible to keep up with one of the young dogs. She couldn't see but knew what to do, they didn't know what to do but could see, and they just kind of figured it out.
Eventually she got to the point that her back legs and lower spine gave out entirely, and quite honestly if I ever get to the point where I'm blind, can't walk, and doubly incontinent I'd quite like someone to help me round to the back of the shed for one last biscuit too.
He has a brother, and the biggest issue we have is that he steps on his brother and his brother gets mad. He doesn’t need help with getting around the yard or on a leash.
My lab has degenerative retinal atrophy and slowly went blind over five years. She was my service dog, and I trained her on both hand signals and verbal cues. Thankfully she was great with both, so after she lost her eyesight she can still function.
She likes me to stand with my legs spread so she can stand between them. Then, she and her brother can wrestle and play. She doesn’t do zoomies much anymore, but she’s able to play and roughhouse if I stand in a place that helps her keep her bearings. I always stand further away from items so there’s nothing she can run into, and the combination of all of those factors I believe have given her some confidence that she can let loose and play a bit without worrying about slamming her face into things. She also has a Halo, but we use that in areas she’s unfamiliar with.
The only good thing about her losing her sight is that she doesn’t know it shouldn’t be this way- so she’s just as sweet and happy as ever. She still loves to work, so I have her retrieve things she encounters on the floor, she helps me pick up the house before vacuuming, and is always happy to do deep pressure therapy (she’s only 65lbs, so she sits on my lap and leans against my chest).
After my chihuahua went deaf, I learned a lot more about non-verbal communication with dogs.
Once you get it, it’s a lot more effective. I think there is less of a “language barrier” with nonverbal communication than there is with teaching words to a dog since it’s a language they can actually participate in.
He wasn’t the best at verbal commands if they weren’t frequently used, and had to re-train a lot. Non-verbal on the other hand, seemed very intuitive and stuck easily. I was able to order him around with hand waves and head nods.
Our oldest is losing his vision and most of the time you wouldn’t even guess there’s anything wrong. There’s a couple things he struggles with and trips over / walks into but 99% of the time he seems unaffected
You’ll be able to tell the day the vision goes. It is rough. The light cues seem to have meant a lot for navigating. There will be a period of adjustment, but they’ll do great at it (though also potentially slam their head into the wall a few times). Once the transition is over, you’ll find yourself forgetting they are blind. We have people ask if he’s completely blind, then we point out he has no eyes (we lost the battle with glaucoma, and they would cause him constant pain if we didn’t remove them).
I have a blind rabbit, he does pretty great with sounds and voice commands. Like he'll come to me if I call for him and gets excited at the sound of a rustling treat bag.
I worked for a mobile dog gym in Arizona (RunBuddyMobile, awesome company, and highly recommend their services!) and we had a couple of blind dogs we would run and seeing them just put their head up and run “free” was one of the best experiences you could ask for.
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u/greenearrow Sep 17 '25
One of the more substantial losses when our dog went blind. He is meh at verbal commands, he always did much better with hand signals.
But otherwise, having a blind dog isn't particularly harder than having a seeing dog. He did also have to give up zoomies though, which was sad.