eena's Page

Lehigh Lady Aberdeen was my very first deerhound. She was placed with me after she had lost an eye to a child at the age of ~12 months. Her original owners brought her back to her breeder fearing that she would now be a danger to children. They couldn't have been more wrong. Deena was a perfect Lady as her name would suggest. I don't recall ever having to discipline her. In fact I remember once coming home from work and finding a wash cloth on the floor. When I lifted it up I discovered that Deena had spit-up and then placed the wash cloth on top of her accident. Could this be coincidence? How smart are deerhounds anyway? I use to call Deena "Little Miss Perfect". At the age of four Deena developed a detached retina in her remaining eye. What hard luck I thought. The eye had to be removed so Deena was left totally sightless. She became very depressed for about five days. Then she suddenly came to terms with her handicap and resumed her normal cheerful disposition. She became quite mobile and would follow my foot steps while off lead as we would go on our walks. She would even run around. Somehow she knew when we were in a wide open space. She also knew where doorways were and would turn to go through them like normal. I would take her to dog shows and other events as we always had. People would always be surprised when I pointed out that Deena was totally blind. She was Donner's aunt. When she died, Donner looked for her for days. As it turned out. Deena had an unusual disease that caused her blood vessels to be brittle and leak. She was a good athlete even with this disablity. Now she runs for ever, in precious deerhound dreams.

There is Deena on the left. Her nephew Donner had a broken leg at the time


Here is the sightless Deena. Pictured here while we were living in Idaho

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