You will know how to spot a sensory loss that is routinely mistaken for disobedience, and which changes around the house matter most for an animal that no longer sees or hears well.
Some links on this page earn us a commission if you buy after clicking. It changes neither the ranking nor what is written here — and we say below what we were unable to check.
Sight and hearing go slowly, and an animal compensates so well that nothing shows for months. What changes then is not its character, it is the map it holds of the house.
A dog that cannot hear does not come when called, and that looks exactly like a dog choosing not to come. A cat with failing sight refuses a jump it used to make without thinking, and that looks like laziness.
The question to ask is this one: does it ignore you when it can see you, or only when its back is turned. The answer sorts it out in a day.
An animal watching you through the window while you shout its name from the end of the garden is not sulking.
This is the most effective adaptation on the whole list, and it costs nothing. An animal losing its sight navigates from memory, and that memory is of the room as it was.
What is left on the floor counts as much as the furniture: boxes, bags, shoes, a chair pulled out from the table. Each one is an obstacle that was not there yesterday.
If a move or a change of room is unavoidable, at least keep the main landmarks together: bed, bowls and tray in the same relation to each other.
A deaf animal touched abruptly in its sleep startles, and a startle can end in a bite that is nothing like it. That is not aggression, it is fright.
Pick one area, the shoulder or the top of the back, and always touch there, gently, leaving time to come round. Rest your hand before moving the animal at all.
Making the floor vibrate as you approach works too: a few firm steps announce you without a shock. It is the first rule to teach the children in the house.
An animal that cannot see reads the floor with its paws. Different textures at key points turn into signposts: a mat in front of the bowls, another at the foot of the stairs, a third by the garden door.
Choose materials that feel plainly different from one another. Shades of colour are no use here, it is the feel underfoot that informs.
These landmarks work for as long as they stay put. Mark their position before you wash them.
An animal with poor sight goes down stairs from memory, and gets it wrong once. A single fall is enough to change the rest of its life.
A gate at the top of the steps, and the same at a landing or a balcony, settles the question without asking anything of anyone. Supervision is reliable right up until the phone rings.
For a cat losing its sight, the heights it used to reach in one jump need an intermediate step, otherwise it will attempt the jump from memory.
With an animal that cannot see, your voice replaces its eyes. Speaking as you enter the room, before touching it, before setting the bowl down, gives it your position and spares it the startle.
With an animal that cannot hear, hand signals take over, and they can be learned at any age while the sight holds. One broad gesture for come is enough to rebuild a recall.
What matters is consistency: the same word, the same gesture, the same person to start with. Variety can come later.
A dog that cannot hear your recall cannot hear the car, the bicycle or the other dog arriving either. An unfenced garden and a path beside a road become different places from what they were.
A long line keeps the freedom to sniff without losing control. It is the compromise that stops every outing turning into a march.
A tag mentioning deafness or blindness helps anyone who finds it understand why it does not respond. It stops the animal being read as nervous or hostile.