Two blind pets

This little cutie is Lizzie, my sister's blind daschund, that I babysat a few weeks ago. Lizzie has been blind for a few years and appears (to me) to be clueless and sad much of the time. Now the sadness may have just been due to the fact that her beloved Mommy was away for 5 days. But I think the cluelessness is perpetual. This photo shows her with her ears "inside out" and she doesn't even seem to know that she just needs to shake her head to straighten them out. Or maybe she's just trying out a new look.





The photo below is of White Boy, my blind society finch. White Boy never seems sad. He spends much of his day dancing and singing, just like his brothers. The rest of the time he spends fluttering around the aviary until he bumps into something that he can grasp. For months I avoided making "furniture changes" in the aviary for fear of confusing him. But I found that changes didn't seem to phase him much. He's very adaptable and manages to find food and water no matter where the dishes are placed. That being said, last night I moved all of the birds from the aviary into cages in preparation for our migration to south Florida in a couple of days. Now, I'm not sure if he has found his water bottle. So a couple of times today I grabbed him (which he hated) and placed his beak to the water bottle (which he loved). I'll continue to do this a few times a day until I'm sure that he can locate it by himself. When we arrive at our winter home, the birds will be moved from their travel cages to large cages and we'll go through the whole process again.