One-Eyed Hound

[DarkArcher]

My brother has blue tick hound puppies, and recently due to an unwitnessed traumatic event one of the puppy’s eyes was damaged to the point the vet removed it. This puppy happened to be his top prospect hound. He and his wife still want to keep the hound, they mainly run bears, bobcats, and raccoons. I’m wondering if any of you guys have had any experiences with one-eyed dogs or any issues with it? What do you think?

 

[WRM]

It'll adapt. Blind dogs can navigate in familiar circumstances. It'll probably still be his top dog--maybe more so now.

 

[Trial153]

I had a great bitch that lost an eye in dog fight. Never bothered her in the least.

 

[TraderMike]

The best bird dog I ever owned lost his left eye to a rattlesnake bite. It took him a minute to get his depth perception back for things like jumping into the truck but eventually he adapted. He was my pheasant hunting partner for 10 years and only had issues if a wild flushing bird was dropped on his blind side. Thankfully his nose never seemed affected. I would imagine a hound wouldn't be slowed down at all.

 

[TFrank]

I know a hound who tracks humans. Lost his eye the other year didn’t effect him really.

 

[CApighunter]

He'll be just fine, seen dogs get messed up way worse and still get the job done.

 

[Cynoscion]

I’ve raised, trained and worked blood trailing dogs for catching wounded animals for 16-18 yrs. One of my leopard dogs lost an eye fighting a pretty bad deer one season. I’m not really sure how it happened but I know both eyes worked when I turned him out. He trailed and caught the wounded deer for the hunter and after I got the deer killed and got the dog back to the truck, I noticed his eye was pretty screwed (1st pic right after). We tried to save it over the next couple of weeks working with the vet but to no avail. He was 4 when that happened. He lived until this past December and was still catching wounded critters when he died. Blind as a bat in that eye. He’d still run into stuff, mostly at night, occasionally but it never really slowed him down. The first few weeks were a hoot though. He had no depth perception at first and was a wreck running into crap and missing the bed of the truck altogether. Point is, that pup will be fine.

 

[Whaledriver]

Those ticks run on the nose as primary anyway. I have an old blue tick, well really a white tick now. Hell of a dog!

 

[Thebigbaby]

I had a great bitch that lost an eye in dog fight. Never bothered her in the least.

What about the dog?

 

[Mosby]

I think the dog will adapt. Just like people do. That said the topic reminds me of the old joke about a lost dog named Lucky.