Climbing and 'Clock' Confusion
Dealing with two kinds of possible blind dog confusion - experience & research
- Confusions caused by inability to estimate heights when climbing up or down
- Is it time to get up and go play, or potty - - -"personal time of day clock" confusion'
I. One-eye & Blind Climbing Confusions?
An older dogs that suddenly loses sight in one eye can easily think at first that she can still estimate height and distances. UP seems generally no-problem, because finger-claws can save the day. Going DOWN even for a human with two functional eyes to estimate distances is an experience that might be a nasty surprise. [From experience climbing without ropes on US Sierra Mountains, I can swear to that truth!]
Sadly, one-eye vision means that her instinctive 3-Dimensional vision estimating heights and distances is almost certainly unreliable. If she remembers distances well enough, everything is Ok. But if on pain meds or other medicine, she might not be thinking as clearly as she did.
From experience, generally going up mostly seems to not be much of a problem on stairs, furniture and so on. An UP failure means usually that a better jump or scramble will do the job. Going DOWN however gets “dicey” because a mistake can mean a nasty tumble and twist, and falling on a sore place happens. Managing a Cone is also a lot easier going UP, partly because she is going slower and mistakes are mostly just a nuisance instead of a fall.
When we discovered that ours couldn’t correctly see distance, we “baby-proofed” our deck and stairs railings with “crib-barriers” around all the places such as the gaps under the railing of the deck, where a mistake Down could be very bad. Our indoors stairs we put fluffy carpet on so that tumbled didn’t do any harm, after recovery from surgery was OK for more active stuff.
For outdoors, a leash attached to a harness at the shoulders (like seen used for training Astronauts for low-gravity!) so that if she tumbled her front feet mostly would “fly” a little, which pretty quickly she thought was great fun. After several weeks she was mostly off meds and seemed to memorize correctly all the DOWN distances so she could navigate safely alone, but never go too fast.
II. Losing a personal clock for time-of-day (and confusion for everyone which that causes)
Severe pain, anxiety, surgery anesthesia, medications and so forth can cause dogs (and some humans) to lose complete track of what time of day it is when they wake up, and what day it is (if they care about that.) Fitting in socially can be a problem if a dog’s depressed except when they are awake at two[?] AM and want to play, or eat, or go potty and probably want people to do their part also of the daily agendas. Fortunately humans who travel a lot on fast aircraft across the country or overseas tend to suffer much the same way, so a lot of money has been spent on research for cures for the problem. [Technically, the internal time of day biological clock is called the 'circadian' rhythm.]
A possible kind of blue light which might help some dogs (and their people) was described in the Scientific American Journal, May, 2011, “The hidden organ in our eyes”, pages 55-59. Dogs that are almost daily getting a chance to be outside in sunlight (even under clouds) are it seems already taking the treatment! It seems that the dogs who have to be indoors, maybe recovering from surgery, might benefit most from artificial “blue-light” each day during part or all of each daylight time. According to the Physics, the needed color of light is readily available from commercial “soft white” florescent lights [See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kelvin_Temperature_Chart.jpg>]. It seems from the physics and biology, turning on a lamp with that kind of bulb each morning (and off in the evening) might do what is needed, if your dog is one of the “lucky” ones for whom it works.
There is mystery involved about which ones of the blind dogs and people that blue-light can help: If our dogs are as limited as it seems most people are, the retina back-nerves must still be intact to accept the blue-light and send signals to their brains, etc. Because most humans either lack such sensor nerves in our brains or our skulls are too thick to let the blue-light penetrate enough, maybe we only have such special nerves in our eyes? IF blind dogs lose their retina back-nerves by enucleation or PRA or SARD, that might tend to cause a blind dog to be more likely to be depressed and lose track of its personal internal time-clock for waking, play, etc - - -if the dog is very like a human.
In contrast, birds and some other species (mice, tadpoles, squid, …) can sense blue-light with “pRGCS” style nerve-ganglions in their brain or some other part of their body, in addition to those in their retina. [Reference Scientific American, May 2011, page 59 “Feeling Light, Not Seeing”. Also maybe try GOOGLE (pRGCS) search.]
Without usable and understandable dog-research most of us can only guess whether a particular dog of a particular dog breed can detect blue-light like birds, or if our dogs are like some humans, limited by thick-skulls that prevent blue-light from reaching their brains?
Maybe not related at all, but sounding similar, we heard that some dogs (and humans) suffering from Alzheimer disease tend to become confused near sunset, when the natural blue-light disappears. From the biology, a person might guess that aportion of their brain and autonomous system that ordinarily runs during the night like a "flywheel" or an internal biological clockworks had failed, so when the signals from the blue-light sensors ceased at sunset, the rest of the autonomous control lost synchonization and just "jittered?"
Suggestion: Just for dogs that don’t get a chance to go outside daily for a while in the daylight, it seems likely to be inexpensive to provide a “morning-wake-up-light” to a depressed blind dog who has become confused about what time of day it is. Indoors, especially for winters, we use an inexpensive “shop-light” that has long tube-bulbs in a work room, and little florescent ‘pig-tail’ bulbs in a few lamps of other rooms where dogs go. A wall-plug “timer” might reliably do for an indoor light in the daytime for a blind dog who can’t go out much?
Disclaimer: This is Not medical advice! Above all, please be safe in whatever is tried for your beloved dog (and other companions!)
- Confusions caused by inability to estimate heights when climbing up or down
- Is it time to get up and go play, or potty - - -"personal time of day clock" confusion'
I. One-eye & Blind Climbing Confusions?
An older dogs that suddenly loses sight in one eye can easily think at first that she can still estimate height and distances. UP seems generally no-problem, because finger-claws can save the day. Going DOWN even for a human with two functional eyes to estimate distances is an experience that might be a nasty surprise. [From experience climbing without ropes on US Sierra Mountains, I can swear to that truth!]
Sadly, one-eye vision means that her instinctive 3-Dimensional vision estimating heights and distances is almost certainly unreliable. If she remembers distances well enough, everything is Ok. But if on pain meds or other medicine, she might not be thinking as clearly as she did.
From experience, generally going up mostly seems to not be much of a problem on stairs, furniture and so on. An UP failure means usually that a better jump or scramble will do the job. Going DOWN however gets “dicey” because a mistake can mean a nasty tumble and twist, and falling on a sore place happens. Managing a Cone is also a lot easier going UP, partly because she is going slower and mistakes are mostly just a nuisance instead of a fall.
When we discovered that ours couldn’t correctly see distance, we “baby-proofed” our deck and stairs railings with “crib-barriers” around all the places such as the gaps under the railing of the deck, where a mistake Down could be very bad. Our indoors stairs we put fluffy carpet on so that tumbled didn’t do any harm, after recovery from surgery was OK for more active stuff.
For outdoors, a leash attached to a harness at the shoulders (like seen used for training Astronauts for low-gravity!) so that if she tumbled her front feet mostly would “fly” a little, which pretty quickly she thought was great fun. After several weeks she was mostly off meds and seemed to memorize correctly all the DOWN distances so she could navigate safely alone, but never go too fast.
II. Losing a personal clock for time-of-day (and confusion for everyone which that causes)
Severe pain, anxiety, surgery anesthesia, medications and so forth can cause dogs (and some humans) to lose complete track of what time of day it is when they wake up, and what day it is (if they care about that.) Fitting in socially can be a problem if a dog’s depressed except when they are awake at two[?] AM and want to play, or eat, or go potty and probably want people to do their part also of the daily agendas. Fortunately humans who travel a lot on fast aircraft across the country or overseas tend to suffer much the same way, so a lot of money has been spent on research for cures for the problem. [Technically, the internal time of day biological clock is called the 'circadian' rhythm.]
A possible kind of blue light which might help some dogs (and their people) was described in the Scientific American Journal, May, 2011, “The hidden organ in our eyes”, pages 55-59. Dogs that are almost daily getting a chance to be outside in sunlight (even under clouds) are it seems already taking the treatment! It seems that the dogs who have to be indoors, maybe recovering from surgery, might benefit most from artificial “blue-light” each day during part or all of each daylight time. According to the Physics, the needed color of light is readily available from commercial “soft white” florescent lights [See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kelvin_Temperature_Chart.jpg>]. It seems from the physics and biology, turning on a lamp with that kind of bulb each morning (and off in the evening) might do what is needed, if your dog is one of the “lucky” ones for whom it works.
There is mystery involved about which ones of the blind dogs and people that blue-light can help: If our dogs are as limited as it seems most people are, the retina back-nerves must still be intact to accept the blue-light and send signals to their brains, etc. Because most humans either lack such sensor nerves in our brains or our skulls are too thick to let the blue-light penetrate enough, maybe we only have such special nerves in our eyes? IF blind dogs lose their retina back-nerves by enucleation or PRA or SARD, that might tend to cause a blind dog to be more likely to be depressed and lose track of its personal internal time-clock for waking, play, etc - - -if the dog is very like a human.
In contrast, birds and some other species (mice, tadpoles, squid, …) can sense blue-light with “pRGCS” style nerve-ganglions in their brain or some other part of their body, in addition to those in their retina. [Reference Scientific American, May 2011, page 59 “Feeling Light, Not Seeing”. Also maybe try GOOGLE (pRGCS) search.]
Without usable and understandable dog-research most of us can only guess whether a particular dog of a particular dog breed can detect blue-light like birds, or if our dogs are like some humans, limited by thick-skulls that prevent blue-light from reaching their brains?
Maybe not related at all, but sounding similar, we heard that some dogs (and humans) suffering from Alzheimer disease tend to become confused near sunset, when the natural blue-light disappears. From the biology, a person might guess that aportion of their brain and autonomous system that ordinarily runs during the night like a "flywheel" or an internal biological clockworks had failed, so when the signals from the blue-light sensors ceased at sunset, the rest of the autonomous control lost synchonization and just "jittered?"
Suggestion: Just for dogs that don’t get a chance to go outside daily for a while in the daylight, it seems likely to be inexpensive to provide a “morning-wake-up-light” to a depressed blind dog who has become confused about what time of day it is. Indoors, especially for winters, we use an inexpensive “shop-light” that has long tube-bulbs in a work room, and little florescent ‘pig-tail’ bulbs in a few lamps of other rooms where dogs go. A wall-plug “timer” might reliably do for an indoor light in the daytime for a blind dog who can’t go out much?
Disclaimer: This is Not medical advice! Above all, please be safe in whatever is tried for your beloved dog (and other companions!)