blind dog Archives - Page 2 of 2

Blind 11-Year-Old Lab Survives 2 Weeks Lost in Alaska

Madera, a blind, 11-year-old black Lab who got lost in Alaska Feb. 6, was saved by the bell.

Constantine Khrulev was riding his bike Thursday, accompanied by his dog — who was wearing the bell on his collar — when he heard another dog whining. He found Madera under a tree about 100 yards from the trail.

Madera had gone missing from her Ester home two weeks earlier after the wife of her dog dad, Ed Davis, let her out of the house to do her business.

Usually Madera came back inside as soon as she was finished. But as the temperature dipped to 40 degrees below zero, Madera was nowhere to be found.

Davis was out of town at the time, working at the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. He wasn’t optimistic about finding Madera alive when he returned home this week.

“My best hope was to walk those trails and look for a track that might be hers,” Davis told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. “My best hope was to find a frozen dog.”

Madera had ended up in the woods only half a mile from her home. The senior pooch somehow managed to survive nearly two weeks in sub-zero weather.

When Khrulev found Madera, he brought her to a neighbor of the Davis family. Madera, who lost her eyesight due to an autoimmune disease, shed about 14 pounds during her ordeal, but was in good condition considering the circumstances.

“Maybe Madera went on a vision quest,” wrote Sharon Alden in a comment on the News-Miner article. “I saw Ed and Madera this week and she’s the same sweet dog with a great spirit and a now-trim waistline. I’m so amazed that this had a happy ending.”

Davis offered Khrulev a $100 reward, but Khrulev refused it and asked him to donate it to the Fairbanks Animal Shelter Fund. Impressed, Davis increased the donation to $250.

The News-Miner article doesn’t mention it, but I bet Davis will get Madera a bell of her own.

Photo via Facebook

Blind Beagle and His Seeing-Eye Sister Need Forever Home Together

DEC. 18, 2014 UPDATE: There’s very happy news for this sweet pair — Molly and Buster have been adopted by two women who saw the dogs on KOMO News! “If we had special ordered the perfect home, this would have been it!” NOAH Center posted today in an update on its Facebook page. “The ladies have owned multiple Beagles in their past & own a beautiful farm with acres of fenced yard. Buster and Molly now have a couple of Golden Retriever friends too! This really is the season for miracles!”

After being abandoned at a farm in Washington three months ago, an older male and female Beagle were taken in by the NOAH Center, an animal shelter in Stanwood, Wash.

The two dogs, whom the shelter named Buster and Molly, didn’t seem to pay much attention to the staff. At first the workers figured it was due to their age — they are both about 8 years old — and the stress from being in the shelter.

But then they noticed that Buster frequently walked into walls. Molly would often block him from doing so, and would nudge him through the doggie doors.

“Molly is a seeing-eye dog, so for her brother she helps to make sure he doesn’t get into situations that could be dangerous for him,” Lani Kurtz, the shelter’s adoption director, told KOMO News. She said she believes the dogs may be siblings since they are the same age.

According to the shelter’s website, Buster and Molly are “a couple of goofy and energetic Beagles that have so much love and appreciation for life; a pair of friends we could all learn a lesson from.”

Buster and Molly did get adopted out together after they were brought to the shelter, but unfortunately it didn’t work out. Their new pet parent’s home had an unfenced yard and no doggie doors — two important items this pair can’t go without.

So Buster and Molly are once again available, but only as a couple.

“They have to go together. Buster needs Molly,” Kurtz told KOMO News. “We will keep them until we find that perfect place for them.”

The adoption fee for both is $200. There is a $50 discount on Mondays, as well as discounts for seniors.

“They are no longer spring chickens, and don’t have a fondness for children, so a home without kids would be best,” notes the shelter’s website.

For more information, visit the NOAH Center website, call 360-629-7055 or email info@thenoahcenter.org.

Photo via the NOAH Center

Dog Mom Invents ‘Muffin’s Halo Guide’ to Protect and Help Blind Dogs

After a Toy Poodle named Muffin began losing his vision due to cataracts — and took a spill down some stairs — his dog mom, Silvie Bordeaux, decided to do something to help him safely get around.

Bordeaux invented the Muffin’s Halo Guide for Blind Dogs, a lightweight, three-piece device that includes a harness, copper tubing “halo” and wing-shaped padding on the back. It stops vision-impaired pups of all sizes from bumping into walls and furniture, or worse.

“They can eat and sleep and play and run with it on,” Bordeaux told the Associated Press. “It’s like their superpowers.”

Dr. Christin Fahrer, of Eye Care for Animals in Culver City, Calif., told the AP that if the halo hits the wall before the dog does, it will slow him down and help prevent injury to his face.

“We are the ones who struggle with the concept of our pets being blind,” Dr. Fahrer said, noting that dogs can adapt fairly easily to losing their sight. “We struggle with what it would be like for us. Our pets don’t drive or read, but we use our vision every moment of every day. It’s a different world for them.”

On the Muffin’s Halo website, Bordeaux wrote, “Muffin now knows his home again and can travel with me to any hotel or friend’s house and gets to familiarize any new surroundings, quickly. He just loves this aid and is back to his peppy confident self!”

Bordeaux wrote that she was “stunned” over how many dogs are abandoned or euthanized when they lose their eyesight. To help these pups, she started the non-profit Second Chances For Blind Dogs, which donates Muffin’s Halos to blind dogs in shelters.

Like the dogs wearing the device she created, Bordeaux has earned her angel wings. (Muffin’s Halo is also available in butterfly and quarterback shapes.) For information about ordering it, visit the website.

Photo via Facebook