Duchess the blind-and-deaf dog
This 14-year old girl spent most of her life living in a garage in California. Finally, her owner took her to a vet clinic to be euthanized. The gentleman was, by his own account, fed up with this dog because she "just slept all day."
Yet Duchess was so happy to be out of the garage that she pranced around the clinic … and the vet refused to put her down. So the clinic set about trying to find a home for this tiny blind-and-deaf Jack Russell, but after months, no one would take her. They finally contacted us.
Because she's ancient, we've started calling her Granny, and it fits her personality. She's just the sweetest thing, and every time we pick her up, she licks us on the face. But honestly, we didn't really know how she would adapt to this environment, going from living isolated in a garage for most of her life to a high-energy household full of dogs and constant activity. That can be a difficult adjustment for any old dog, but when you consider she is totally blind and deaf, and never lived with other dogs, we had to wonder what it would be like for her.
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In a phrase: piece of cake.
Actually, we should say: piece of bread, because that is her favorite thing in the world. We've discovered that she goes crazy whenever she smells bread in the kitchen, and let me tell you, she knows when there's bread out. She can smell it from anywhere. She becomes restless and paces back and forth on the kitchen floor, her head up, nose twitching and her eyes shining, searching for the bread! So whether it's toast for our breakfast or bread for sandwiches at lunch, Granny always has to get her slice first or there won't be peace in the kitchen. A piece of bread for peace in the kitchen, you might say.
Nothing has fazed her so far, and she has managed to become a "regular" in the household pack. We watch her mill around with the other dogs – aside from the Dachshunds she's the smallest one in the house – and she holds her own. We worried that she might be a little snappish, just because she's old and tiny and wouldn't want to get stepped on ... especially when she can't see or hear anyone coming ... but she's never been that way with the other dogs. (Attention, Dachshunds: Please model this behavior!)
June 2008
