[Dailydrool] blind bassets

[Beverly Szaton]

Our first Basset, Warf, went suddenly blind,and I mean we left for work and
he could see (probably not well) and John got home and the dog was blind,
crashing into walls and furniture.
Within a day he had mapped out the whole house.
Within a week he had learned totally new commands (he was 12) like "Step
up", "step down", "curb" "go right"and "go left" and "WATCH OUT" (which
meant stop and wait for one of us. This dog had never followed a direct
command in his life but he followed those. Unfortunately, the blindness was
caused by Lymphoma,and nobody ever suggested chemo, not that we would have
had the money to do it then anyway. (Plus he was the meanest Basset I have
EVER known and it would have been almost impossible for anyone other than
John to handle him without being seriously attacked.) I have always wondered
how much of that was training and how much was his nose, and knowing what I
do now I would bet 95% was his Basset nose teaching him to get along in a
suddenly darkened world.

MomPerson to Nigel,Llewis,Conley and Cooper
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