Posting days: Sunday and Wednesday and, sometimes, maybe, extra ‘news flashes’!

Wednesday August 3rd 2016

Buying the Doggles for Isis was a very good idea. An even better idea was lining them with black material so that virtually no light could penetrate them. Then came the necessarily protracted task of getting her used to wearing them, moving her on from her initial paralysed horror to reluctant acceptance.

We are in the back room – our work and our doss room, I guess. She is sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware of the brightness of the computer screen and the side lamp. Without the Doggles, this would be an impossible scenario. In the evening, the very faint suggestion of light around the drawn blinds would, in itself, set her off on one of her growling, snarling and foot attacking binges.

Poor little Isis. It has taken me almost two years to work out what triggers her various behaviours, and even now I don’t always get it right.

It appears that she finds the light most distressing when when she is tired and needs to sleep. Not surprising, I guess, but unlike most dogs, she can’t just sink into her bed and drop off. Her eyes don’t work like those of most dogs. I think that her impairment not only reduces her vision to virtually nil but makes her unable to control the amount of light which enters her eyes.

Interestingly, after her morning bounce round the park and her breakfast, she will usually sleep soundly for a few hours as long as the blinds are drawn.

In the evening, she finds it much harder to settle, even with the blinds drawn, until, around eight, she has her Doggles put on. Then she sleeps.

The Doggles are removed when she goes outside for her last pee of the day. When we go upstairs for the night, they are replaced as soon as she gets grumpy. Now and then, she is already flat out when I go up, and then I wait until the early morning light disturbs her. Of late, there have been fewer dog nightmares and sometimes she sleeps until getting up time.

But – and here’s the rub – just as we seem to be getting to grips with the light issues, enter the front foot gnawing ……….. and gnawing ……….. and gnawing.

But that’s another story.

Sigh.

Isis came from the Aeza cat and dog rescue and adoption centre in Aljezur, Portugal. For information about adopting an animal from the centre, contact kerry@aeza.org or  www.dogwatchuk.co.uk