International Blind Dog Day

Claire Doll
MSMU Class of 2024

(8/2023) In the final moments of my dog’s life, he couldn’t see. He could barely hear. He walked slowly around the house, his body thin and frail. I can still remember the sound of his paws against hardwood floor, his collar tags ringing together. His sixteen years of life behind him, as if weighing him down. Yet, although he was quite literally blind (cataracts) and couldn’t make out most noises, he still turned his head at the sound of my voice, folded his ears down and crept towards me. And just like that, I was six years old again, and he was the new puppy crawling into my lap.

I had no idea that International Blind Dog Day was a thing. Celebrated on August 23rd, this holiday appreciates dogs with blindness. As dogs have evolved with people, their health issues have related to human nature as well. The care and protection of dogs has only recently become a priority, and International Blind Dog Day serves to sensitize owners and recognize our beloved pets’ disabilities which also matter.

When I first saw that this holiday existed, I immediately thought of two things: Toby, my childhood dog who passed at the age of 16 years in 2021, and a class I took last fall, called Literature and the Environment.

The English course focused on the representation of animals in literature. We read books such as Life of Pi, exploring the roles between wildlife and humans, and we even researched the environmental impacts humans have left on the world, and the records of this left behind in literature as well. It was a fascinating course, using literary analysis, philosophical perspectives, and scientific research to pose interesting questions—questions we’ve spent several classes discussing.

When we reached the unit on pets, the questions grew deeper, and the discussions grew emotional.

For example: is it possible for a dog to love? Do dogs have souls? If dogs experience pain, does this suffering reveal a greater spiritual reason?

When I was young and spent my childhood growing up with Toby—playing dress up and sneaking him into my bedroom at night—I was convinced that we were best friends. Long before he developed blindness and became hard of hearing and was in constant pain, he would run circles around the backyard, play catch with his favorite toy, and lie in the sun. I would sit down next to him and feel certain that we were best friends, that he loved me as much as I loved him.

But this Literature and the Environment course revealed theories that went against what I believed as a child. For example, the attachment theory shows how the very close relationships between pets and humans serve merely as a transaction for nurturing behaviors. In these relationships, while pets seek safety and protection, humans crave companionship. It is in our nature to believe that dogs love us, that they are here for our utility, that their pain is our pain.

As Toby grew older, and as I progressed to college, I noticed how his age slowed him down. He lost some of his hearing, and if I looked closely, I noticed what looked like blurry clouds in his right eye: cataracts. Toby couldn’t see well, and I did what any human would have done. I imagined myself in his shoes—I mean, paws.

This raised another question: do animals feel emotion? Did Toby feel sad or upset that he lost his eyesight? Did he grow sorrowful over his once clear vision?

Emotions are a very subjective experience, individual to our own psychological states and processes. However, we must assume that animals have emotions to understand the roots of their behavior and how they process positive and negative experience.

At the very end of Toby’s life, when we took him to the veterinary clinic to "put him down," I wanted to know so badly if Toby felt emotion. Although he couldn’t see, did he recognize this? Was he conscious of his lack of eyesight, his hard of hearing?

I held Toby for the last time, and he looked up at me with those blurred, big brown eyes, and suddenly, I was six again, staring up at my baby puppy. But I was twenty, and Toby was dying, and he couldn’t see me. He was suffering every day and needed the pain to go away. And although I couldn’t for sure know if he felt sad or upset or sorrowful, I knew he was unsettled. Toby didn’t know what was happening, but he knew something was different.

And he couldn’t see. I imagined being blind myself, hearing distant voices and being in a cold room and feeling scared, shaking and shivering.

In the final moments of Toby’s life, he felt the pierce of a shot, yelped loudly, and then stopped shaking in fear. Felt his last pulses of life. Then slipped away quietly.

It was difficult, experiencing this. Toby was an amazing dog, and even if he was just a dog, I loved him as my best friend all throughout my childhood. But when I took Literature and the Environment, only then did I reflect on the emotions we experience when going through things like this.

Toby being blind revealed a deeper type of empathy I struggled to define. How could I know for sure if he felt scared or sad when losing his eyesight? How can any human cope with this, with the knowledge that a dog might be suffering when we can’t truly know this for sure? It’s its own type of sadness, somewhere between feeling empty and hopeless.

But what do we know? That International Blind Dog Day exists, meaning there is so much for love for all dogs, especially those with disabilities. That there is an attachment between humans and their pets, and so what if we call this love? In its most simple definition, love is a powerful connection that transforms.

By writing about Toby and reflecting on the August 23rd holiday, I want to raise awareness to all the dogs struggling with blindness—whether they know this or not—because they are loved, fully, and this is most definitely known.

Read other articles by Claire Doll