What Dogs Can Teach Us About Handling Disability

A friend just told me that her dog is going blind, but it doesn’t seem to bother the dog at all. He just keeps on going, bumping into things sometimes, but otherwise pretty much the same as ever.

I once had a dog who was deaf. He had been deaf from a young age, due to a number of ear infections. It didn’t seem to concern him at all. He was great at reading “sign language”. That is, if I beckoned to him, he would come; if I held up my hand, palm out, as in “stop”, he would stay where he was, etc. If he wasn’t looking at me and I wanted him to come to me, all I had to do was stomp on the floor, and he would feel the vibrations and look at me. Then I just had to motion him to “come”, and he would come.

In fact, there were a few advantages to having a deaf dog. He would never bark. The neighbor dogs could be barking up a storm, but because he couldn’t see them over the high fence they had, and he couldn’t hear them, he wouldn’t react.

And recently, I saw a little three-legged miniature poodle at the Humane Society, waiting to be adopted. The cute little thing was hopping all over, as lively as any dog. The people who came to look at the dogs all really liked her, and I am sure she got adopted quickly.

We can learn a lot from how dogs handle their disabilities. They don’t feel sorry for themselves or get all depressed and ask “why me?”. They just go on with life to the best of their ability. They accept things as they are and don’t obsess over things. They don’t feel self-conscious or worry that people will not like them because they are “different.”

Those of us who have some kind of disability (and I think most people have some kind of “disability”; some are just a lot more visible than others) can take a lesson from these dogs.

Also, just as we seem to think nothing of accepting dogs with disabilities, we can learn to accept our fellow humans with disabilities. We don’t need to feel sorry for them or coddle them. Just treat them like anyone else. They really are no different than us.

Tags: Adoption, Deafness, Disability

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