The thing about a blind dog is that he does not know he is a blind dog. He knows the shape of a room, the sound of a bowl, the particular tread of the person who is coming to get him.
Tanner learned all three in the eleven weeks he spent at the Middleburg Humane Foundation, and then he learned a new set, in a new house, with a sighted husky to follow and five cats to negotiate.
He arrived on a Tuesday in a crate that was slightly too small, from a county two hours south, with a note attached that gave only his approximate age and the word “gentle.” The note was correct on both counts.
What the note did not say, because nobody knew it yet, was how he would handle a house. Blind dogs map rooms the way the rest of us map a dark hallway at night — by memory, by touch, and by an accumulating confidence that the furniture has not moved since yesterday. Move a chair on a blind dog and you have not injured him; you have insulted him.
The foster placement came first, because the Foundation does not send an animal with a disability straight into a permanent home. Eleven weeks is a long time in a kennel. It is long enough for a dog to learn the route from his door to the yard, and long enough for the people who walk him twice a day to begin, quietly and against their training, to hope.
The adopters already had a husky. This turned out to matter more than anyone predicted. A sighted dog of the same breed moves at a pace a blind one can follow by sound alone, and within a fortnight Tanner had stopped navigating by wall and started navigating by his brother.
The cats, for their part, worked it out in under a week — which is roughly six days longer than they would like it recorded.
Fourteen animals are still at the Foundation as this page goes to press. Their fees are covered during Mars Global Adoption Weekend.
Adoption fees on Mars Global Adoption Weekend are covered by Mars Petcare and partner organisations.
See who's here →When we heard that the candy and pet food company — which makes Milky Ways and Mars bars for us, IAMS and Pedigree for our dogs and Temptations for our cats — wanted to make everyone aware of how local it was, we thought: what better way than through the local press?
And besides, not only is Mars HQ in McLean, but Jacquie Mars lives out here.
So we asked the company — yes, with a little help from our friends — if it would run a year-long test to see if us local news editors could share their message wide enough throughout Hunt Country to be a serious complement to their own social media efforts.
Can local news organizations help drive national brands and recapture a piece of what kept community newspapers alive for decades? That is the question. If this is the first you've heard of the Mars "Closer Than You Think" campaign, then we're onto something.
What we're thinking is to bring you two sets of stories over the year juxtaposed to Mars' own messages. The first about rescues: how they work and how you can help, through our colleagues at the Middleburg Humane Foundation. The second describing how Mars is a thought leader in responsible pet ownership and animal adoption, as well as how it makes its petfood and the science behind it.
In addition to being published in the Times, the stories on these pages will go up on the Georgetowner's 'In Country' section, part of our efforts to build a news, events and advertising bridge between Hunt Country and DC.
Each of these dogs contributed $375 to help cover adoption costs and the cost of distributing this page, supplementing support from Mars. Have your dogs help our dogs.
The thing about a blind dog is that he does not know he is a blind dog. He knows the shape of a room, the sound of a bowl, the particular tread of the person coming to get him.
Tanner learned all three in the eleven weeks he spent at the Middleburg Humane Foundation, and then he learned a new set, in a new house, with a sighted husky to follow and five cats to negotiate.
[Dana Priest's reported story — 300 words — drops into this space. Everything around it is final.]
He arrived on a Tuesday in a crate that was slightly too small, from a county two hours south, with a note attached that said only his approximate age and the word "gentle." The note was correct on both counts.
What the note did not say, because nobody knew it yet, was how he would handle a house. Blind dogs map rooms the way the rest of us map a dark hallway at night, by memory and by touch and by an accumulating confidence that the furniture has not moved since yesterday.
The cats, for their part, worked it out in under a week — which is roughly six days longer than they would like it recorded.
The foster placement came first, because the Foundation does not send an animal with a disability straight into a permanent home. Eleven weeks is a long time in a kennel — long enough for a dog to learn the route from his door to the yard, and long enough for the people who walk him twice a day to begin, quietly and against their training, to hope.
Continues online — the full story, and the fourteen animals still waiting
When we heard that the candy and pet food company — which makes Milky Ways and Mars bars for us, IAMS and Pedigree for our dogs and Temptations for our cats — wanted to make everyone aware of how local it was, we thought 'what better way than through the local press?'
And besides, not only is Mars HQ in McLean, but Jacquie Mars lives out here.
So we asked the company — yes, with a little help from our friends — if it would run a year-long test to see if us local news editors could share their message wide enough throughout Hunt Country to be a serious complement to their own social media efforts.
Can local news organizations help drive national brands and recapture a piece of what kept community newspapers alive for decades? That is the question. If this is the first you've heard of the Mars "Closer Than You Think" campaign, then we're onto something.
What we're thinking is to bring you two sets of stories over the year juxtaposed to Mars' own messages. The first about rescues; how they work and how you can help, through our colleagues at the Middleburg Humane Foundation. The second describing how Mars is a thought leader in responsible pet ownership and animal adoption as well as how it makes its petfood and the science behind it.
This first story about Tanner was written by Washington Post Pulitzer Prize winner Dana Priest, who is on the board of the Piedmont Journalism Foundation, publisher of the Fauquier Times. (If we do a good job, maybe Mars will include the series in the pet food bags!) The stories on these pages will also go up on the Georgetowner's 'In Country' section.
Read more here
Tanner spent eleven weeks waiting. Read how he got home — and meet the fourteen animals still waiting today.
Eleven weeks in a kennel. Then a door opened.
Animated sequence covers the stray months nobody filmed. Live footage takes over the moment he's carried out.