We are the owners of a beautiful 7 yr old black lab named Gunny. Gunny was diagnosed with diabetes about 5 months ago and is now going blind : ( It makes me so sad b/c he was such an active playful dog and now not so much.
He is doing pretty good with the diabetes but the blindness is new and scary for all of us including his two human brothers. We also have an elder beagle named Scooby who is 15 and deaf…go figure we have the deaf leading the blind and the blind alerting the deaf!!
I came upon this site looking for information on how to help us to help Gunny adjust. I have many ?? especially since now Gunny has started having panic attacks at night after we go to bed and this has led me to sleeping on the couch (i’m too old for that) and help would be appreciated!
I also responded to Marti on our forum but for anyone who is experiencing panic attacks with their blind dogs, they could try the Tellington Touch method of wrapping their dogs when the panic attacks occur.
My sighted dog has a number of issues and we use a Thundershirt on her and it really calms her down. It is basically the same principle as the Ttouch wrapping.
Here’s a few links on how to do it:
http://www.crvetcenter.com/ttouch.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N83oXBZy0KM
And a link to the Thundershirt on Amazon:
Thundeshirt Dog Anxiety Treatment
My dog too has diabeties and is now blind it happened really fast for him and he was having a terrible time at first. He kind of went blind over night and he was very scared. Since he is a little guy I picked him up and held him when he was having his panic attacks. I found that whne I held him tight and talk softly to him he calm down. He was too a very active little guy and my heart totally broke. I cried all the time when it first happened but now as he gets used to it and accomplish a new thing I praise him and pet him to let him know he is doing good. He seems to like that. He still learning to get around still and it has been only a week since he went blind. He has cataracts and he had the most beautiful brown eyes and now they are covered by this gray fog like. I think he can still see the bright light but not the shapes of anything because I live in Florida and the bright sun makes him squint when we are out.