Deaf, Blind and Blind-deaf dogs FOREVER!
(Lots more pages are under the topic-headers: see index at bottom of this page!)

This is a journalistic-science & research-review site dedicated to deaf and blind dogs and to helping owners of deaf dogs and blind dogs with their dogs in the best way. (Pages are updated as often as new useful information becomes available to us - you're welcome to contact us with information, your stories and questions that you care about for deaf or blind dogs.)

To aid non-science persons for the best care of their dogs, we mostly skipped academic style, rigorous cumbersome academic  references and tedious lists of academic credential.  Immense efforts were made to ensure accuracy.  Scientific jargon had to be sacrificed often to offer more understandable substance to as many people and their dogs as possible.

Because...   A deaf or blind dog is as good a forever companion as an ordinary dog, and the world needs to understand.  When we began building this site, we were aware that when dogs become blind or deaf (from any of many causes) most of them happily learn and can sense mechanical vibrations (sound) from any or all of as many as eight or nine of their biological skills for that.  Also blind-deaf dogs usually with the aid of their kind humans can enjoy a remarkably good doggish quality of life.  For the moment there is more here about deaf dogs than about blind dogs and their people but we hope to improve that with the help of readers. Many people expressed appreciation for insights and new information in these pages. 

We hope you find what you seek, perhaps learn new useful information, and come back sometimes to see what's new, --- to tell a story, ask a question or share observations of your dogs.   There is much here to be seen or told.  Some of it is surprising and contrary to "official" popular notions and superstitions: the people most knowledgeable of these topics are often those of us living day to day with our deaf, blind or blind-deaf companions.   Thanks for visiting us, because here's the real thing:  

1. It’s a dog, with a unique personality, with its breed and its' breed traits,  and

2. Blind dogs can learn to navigate by smells, mechanical vibrations (sound) and echoes of sounds, much like bats, dolphins and some blind humans.

3. Deaf dogs, blind and blind-deaf dogs have as many as eight or nine ways to sense mechanical vibrations (sound.)  Humans mostly use just one style of hearing, with our inner ear, but dogs have more skills.

4. Research from the years 2000 through 2011 on humans & other species showed that many deaf and-or blind dogs use secondary ways (alternative modes of perception) that dogs have from birth.  Many dogs sense mechanical vibrations (sound) as a coarse kind of "vision" for mapping and getting about safely, at amazing speeds.   Dogs can be far more versatile than humans in adapting, but they often need a little time.

We're tracking advances as widely as we can to help deaf, blind and blind-deaf dogs, and their people to live well.   Major advances of many sorts continue, leading to better training and aid to deaf, blind and blind-deaf dogs.  Often they can adapt by using their amazing variety of senses to safely enjoy life.   Reports from deaf dog owners, blind dog owners, and experiments with humans and other species confirm that animals and birds can adapt their nervous system and senses to offset losses of orinary (human-like) hearing and sight.  Biological abilities of that sort are confirmed, (such as "synesthesia"), observed among blind and-or deaf.

We're interested in stories or questions of owners or prospective owners of deaf or blind or blind-deaf dogs. If you have a story to tell or a question to ask, please use our contact page or blog to tell us. You will receive an answer! We're gathering data about such dogs and their experiences, to learn ever more for these dogs' and their humans' lives.  We have an academically qualified dog behaviorist and others with us, who'll answer questions about dogs to the best of our ability.

Messages of actual observations by people living with blind and/or deaf dogs are highly valued and stimulate new studies to verify (or not) such observations.   Laboratories, we realize, aren’t sufficient to confirm or deny the reality or authenticity of most observations of owners. 

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&   Table of Contents (January, 2012)   &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& *     Verify-Science
 -- Much of what we learned was good for helping deaf, blind and blind-deaf dogs to live with humans
(and the reverse!).
Definitions: (see also Wikipedia for details and textbooks of Physics, etc. as they apply to all species)
Sound               Mechanical Pressure-Density-velocity waves (vibrations) in gas, liquid or solids
Hearing            Detection and use of mechanical vibrations (sound)
Light                 Electromagnetic wave-particles-vibrations
Seeing               Detection and use of electromagnetic vibrations (light) and/or  hearing of  mechanical waves for mapping, etc.

                                                                        Dogs continue to learn during their whole lifetime:
                                                                                  none are so deaf that they refuse to "hear" 
                                                                                       or so blind that they refuse to "see"
                                                                                      or fail to  learn by any way that they can.
                                                                                                                                                           Anon