A beautiful poem:
I cannot see you Mommy, when you cuddle me so near.
And yet I know you love me, it's in the words I hear.
I cannot see you Daddy, when you hold me by your side
But still I know you love me when you tell me so with pride.
I cannot see to run and play out in the sun so bright
For here inside my tiny head it's always dark as night.
I cannot see the treats you give when I am extra good
But I can wag my tail in Thanks just like a good dog should.
"She cannot see. The dogs no good" is what some folks might say
"She can't be trained, she'll never learn She must be put away."
But not you, Mom and Daddy You know that it's alright
Because I love you just as much as any dog with sight.
You took me in, you gave me love and we will never part
Because I'm blind with just my eyes, I see you in my heart.
Sherrill Wardrip (Blind Dogs List member) www.blinddogs.com
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September 18 2005
Hi there!
Sooner than expected, Zia seems to have turned blind today. Everything points in the direction that she can’t see a thing anymore.
Fortunately Zia doesn’t seem to be suffering from all this. To us (people) it’s harder to deal with.
It’s great to experience how much Zia trusts me! Ofcourse our bond only gets stronger. My new job, to be her eyes, is quite hard to get used to (so quickly). There are some tumbles and bumping into things (unfortunately on Zia’s part) involved, but we’re getting better each day! ;-)
If you have some useful tips on how to live with a blind dog, I will be greateful to hear that from you!
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13 september '05
Hi there!
Here’s the next update about Zia.
My excuses for all the grammar and spelling mistakes... I’m a bit exhausted!
Since the last update Zia’s sight has deteriorated quite a lot. Zia started bumping into dogs and people again and her ‘best’ eye was hurting.
After talking to the specialist last Friday, I went to the vet to get her painful eye checked out. It turned out that her cornea was slightly damaged, probably due to a twig that she hadn’t noticed. So we had to put ointment on her eye 4x a day.
Over the weekend Zia had problems conquering stairs and she didn’t want to go for walks (only pee & poo & return home).
Today we went to the specialist. I was prepared with quite a long list of questions I had for him. He established that both her retina and the optic nerve seemed to have atrophied. He concluded what I was allready fearing: Zia will most likely become totally blind! There is nothing that we can do for Zia to prevent this from happening... Ofcourse this news was quite a huge blow for us.
On the positive site:
We can run down the Prednoral (over a 14 day period)! Hopefully the excessive drinking and peeing will stop soon too!
Zia isn’t in pain! She will be able to keep her eyes, provided that she doesn’t badly injure them. So tomorrow we’ll be getting a pair of doggles for her, to prevent her getting eye injuries.
In 3 months time we’ll be returning to Dr. Gutteling (the specialist). Then he’ll probably be able to determine weather Zia had optic neuritis or SARDS (Sudden Aqcuired Retinal Degeneration).
I’ll keep you posted!
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8 September ‘05
There is some good and some bad news about Zia.
The bad news: Zia appears to have no vision left in her left eye. Her pupil doesn’t respond to light and her blink-reflex (when I move my hand toward her eye) is absent. Over the last week there hasn’t been any improvement.
Due to the Prednoral (=Prednison), Zia drinks a lot. This causes her to pee a lot. She can’t stay dry during the nights (up to 5 hours) anymore. For the timebeing she’s allowed to pee on the balcony at night, which is a better alternative for her than to pee indoors.
The good news: Zia has some vision remaining in her right eye! She appears to manage quite well with it.
Fortunately Zia doens’t get spooked easily. Neither at home nor outdoors.
Due to her loss of vision Zia behaves very friendly and carefully towards unknown dogs she meets.
At home Zia stays more on her own. Guinam thinks it’s a shame, although Bashyr is quite pleased not to be scolded upon!
In the coming times all of us need to make some major adjustments to the changed situation! For Erik and me it is quite hard at times, suddenly dealing with a poor-sighted dog.
For the Kelpies it’s hard too, as Zia used to be the alpha dog. Especially Guinam gets very insecure due to these changes.
To be continued....
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3 September ‘05
There’s been some bad news about my Basenji-girl Zia (she just trned 8 years old!).
2 weeks ago I noticed that Zia seemed to have problems with seeing. Ofcourse I watched her carefully, but unfortunately her behaviour deteriorated.
On Monday August 22, she actually walked and fell into the water without trying to break! That’s not something she normally does, as she dislikes water a lot! Later that same walk, she crashed into my bike when she heard me call for Bashyr and Guinam! We were so alarmed that at 18.30 o’clock we immediately rushed Zia to the vet’s!
When the vet inspected her eyes with a bright light, Zia didn’t even blink! The vet suspected that her retinea was detatching, although she had never seen it looking like this before. She suspected that Zia was totally blind, or close to that. I know that Zia has always had SOME vision remaining! We needed to visit an eye-specialist urgently. Due to the time we had to wait a whole night (which seemed to be extra long!!!)...
Fortunately, after having had some words with the vet, we were able to go to specialist Dr. Gutteling (in Emmeloord) on Tuesday afternoon. After a careful inspection of Zia’s eyes (no blinking to the bright lights again), he thought that Zia might be suffering from Neuritis Nervus Opticus (also known as Optic Neuritis, a rather rare disease) although he couldn’t rule out SARDS (Sudden Aqcuired Retinal Degeneration) at that point either.
We started on Prednoral (Prednison related drug) immediately.
After 2 days on these meds, Zia started to walk in front of me again and she seems to be able to spot tennisballs in the water again! This was a huge improvement for her! After that there weren’t any major changes in her behaviour.
So far we seem to be lucky as Zia’s sight hasn’t deteriorated, and her pupils are reacting to light again!!!
I’ll keep you posted via this website!
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