Mumtee the blind puppy
In
the poker game of life, Mother Nature sometimes isn't
very nice when it comes to the genetic cards she deals. In
the case of Mumtee, she was born with no eyeballs in her head.
She was also going to have a cleft palate, but it looks like
Mother Nature changed her mind at the last minute: There's
a gap in Mumtee's upper gum and front teeth, but the
cleft never materialized.
But because this Chow Chow puppy was born blind, she assumes everyone else was, too. After all, if you could never see, how do you know what you're missing? So she powers her way through life with confidence and courage.
This puppy was born on May 15, 2003, in New Orleans. (She's the only animal we've ever had with a known birth date.) She was one of a litter of pups belonging to a breeder who occasionally bred his two Chows. The breeder named her Mumtee, which means “my special one” in a Cajun dialect.
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Not knowing what to do with a blind puppy but not wanting to put her down, the breeder called a woman in Baton Rouge who had bought Chow pups from him in the past. The breeder asked for her help.
She found our Web site and called us. “If I can get the puppy up to you in Montana, would you be willing to take it?,” she asked. We said yes.
This kind-hearted lady intended to fly the puppy up herself, but her work schedule wouldn't permit it. She eventually persuaded an airline to let her donate her frequent-flyer miles so the breeder could fly Mumtee up to us.
A few months later we met the breeder at the Missoula airport one night. He was carrying a small, very fluffy puppy in a crate that had fit under the airplane seat. He obviously cared deeply about this puppy to have gone to such lengths to get her to us. We drove our newest arrival back to the ranch that night, and the breeder flew out for New Orleans the following morning.
Mumtee has settled right in. Chows are not necessarily “pack animals” like most dogs, and they tend to bond with one or two people and become very protective. They need a lot of socializing early on. So growing up at the sanctuary was a wonderful environment for Mumtee. She has learned to play well with many different dogs, and she became used to having visitors coming and going every weekend.
We have a group of volunteers from Helena who come out for “grooming parties,” and Mumtee gets a regular make-over … and loves it! With her thick, woolly coat, grooming is important. Mumtee delights in the attention and thinks she's a real star when our volunteers get done with her.
She also likes to point out to the other dogs here that although
she was born in Louisiana, she's the only dog at the
ranch that actually has a coat appropriate for Montana winters.
