Your senior dog is going blind: what to actually do

Two things to do, in order. First, see your vet - some causes of vision loss are treatable, one of them is painful, and several are signs of a systemic illness that needs managing in its own right. Second, and only second, change the house. The single most useful thing you will read about living with a blind dog is also the simplest: do not rearrange the furniture. The AKC says it plainly, and it is the whole philosophy - a dog that cannot see navigates a memorised map, so your job is to keep the map true.

The good news, and it is genuinely good: dogs lose their sight much better than people do. They were already running mostly on smell and hearing. A dog that has adjusted will move confidently around a familiar house and most visitors will not notice.

The signs, including the subtle ones

The obvious version is a dog walking into furniture. The version that gets missed, which the AKC specifically names, looks like behaviour rather than vision:

• Suddenly reluctant to jump onto or off the sofa, or to use stairs it used last month.
• Clingy - following you from room to room when it never used to.
• New anxiety, especially in the evening or in unfamiliar places.
• Trouble finding a dropped treat, the water bowl, a favourite toy.
• Startling when touched, because it did not see your hand coming.
• Cloudiness, a blue-grey haze, or eyes that look different in photographs.

Note how much of that list overlaps with pain and with cognitive decline. A dog that has stopped using the stairs may be sore, may be confused, or may not be able to see the bottom step - and the three get managed differently. If the pattern looks more like confusion than caution, read senior dog dementia alongside this; if it looks like pain, signs of pain in a senior dog.

Four changes that do the most work

1. Fix the map, then protect it

Furniture stays where it is. Bowls stay where they are. The bed stays where it is. If something has to move, walk the dog to the new position on a lead a few times rather than letting it find out by collision. The same applies to anything left on the floor - shopping bags, a vacuum cleaner, shoes in the hall are now hazards in a way they were not last year.

2. Give the routes a texture the dog can feel

A runner down the hall does two jobs at once for an old dog: it tells the feet where they are, and it stops the slipping that a dog which cannot see the floor is far more prone to. The AKC's own suggestion is carpet runners over slick tile, with a distinctly textured mat at the top and bottom of the stairs so the dog knows it has reached the last step. That is a cheap, high-value change and it is the one we would make first.

3. Close the stairs and the hazards

A dog that cannot see the edge of a staircase should not be meeting it alone, and the same goes for a pool, a deck edge and an open fire. A gate at the top of the stairs is the one piece of hardware we would buy without hesitating. Leave the dog's own route to the back door open and gate the rest.

4. Use the senses the dog still has

Talk before you touch, every time - say the dog's name as you approach so a hand on the shoulder is never a surprise. Scent-mark the landmarks: the AKC suggests flavour extracts such as vanilla on important places and on toys. Teach simple directional words - step, stop, left, right - and use them in the same tone every time. And keep your own routine stable, because a dog that cannot see reads the day through your movements.

What not to do

• Do not stop walking the dog. Familiar routes on a lead are good for a blind dog - the exercise, the smells and the confidence all matter. Shorter and more predictable, not fewer.
• Do not let it off-lead in open or unfamiliar places. A dog that cannot see cannot see what it is running towards.
• Do not assume it is deaf too. And if it is both, switch to touch cues - a hand on a particular part of the shoulder - taught patiently and consistently.
• Do not skip the vet because the dog is coping. The AKC recommends regular senior checks every six to nine months precisely because early detection changes outcomes for several eye conditions.

If the dog is also stiff, this gets easier, not harder

Most of what helps a blind dog is the same thing that helps an arthritic one: non-slip footing, no jumping, access to the places it wants to be, a bed it can get onto without thinking. If you are managing both, you are doing one job rather than two - the checklist is the senior comfort checklist, and the room-by-room version is senior-proofing the house.