In the past, I’ve written obits for all my wonderful dogs who died either of kidney failure, some form of cancer or doggie Alzheimer’s, so, for a change, I’ve decided to write about welcoming home Max, a blind Australian cattle dog-blue heeler-beagle mix. I got Max from a foster home in Faribault, where he’d been staying with about five other dogs, and, I might say, despite his inherited blindness, he got along quite well with all of them.

Due to a verbal run-in with the “director of adoptions” of the Freeborn County Humane Society, of which I’d been a member since the 1960s, and where I’d gotten most of my dogs to include fostering Annie last year, a beautiful black Lab who eventually died of cancer, I was not allowed to adopt/foster another dog from them.

I went online to Petfinder, saw the picture and read about this darling, blind dog for which I applied to adopt. After conversations between Max’s foster mom, Max was brought to Albert Lea by his foster mom, and he and Ky, my beautiful foxhound-beagle mix (who had been abandoned three years ago) got along well from the start and so, I adopted Max the same day. The two look like brother and sister and for a blind dog, he’s very smart. He knows the layout of the first floor, the backyard, which door to go out, where he’s fed his food and, also, his toys that are kept in a small wired crate.

His hearing is very acute and he will bark at anything he thinks he hears, but he’s not a habitual barker. I put a large bell on Ky’s collar so Max knows where she is. There is some dog in the area that does quite a bit of barking, and Max will have a conversation with it; when one stops barking, the other answers again. This is not done habitually. I have a ramp with two steps and he goes up and down them with ease. Nighttime is when Max gets confused outside so I nailed a 20-inch leash to my house and leash him when he goes out so I can help him get back inside if need be.

We are all getting acclimated with each other, and though he knows a lot now, it will take time and patience to train him with various doggie commands. Max is a precious, adorable dog and, in the long run, everything will work out well. So, instead of saying farewell to a dog, Ky and I say to you, Max: Welcome home.

Lee Bangert

Albert Lea