Wait, so who was the first dumbest dog you’ve ever met?

gallusrostromegalus:

The dumbest dog I ever met was a secret genius.

So when I was five, my Aunt Helen called me to inform me that since I was the next-oldest of the cousins, I got to name her new puppy.  Unfortunately, she called me at like 9 in the morning and my ADHD ass was really focused on the concept of breakfast so I said “Pancake”.  And Helen, bless her, named her little German Shepherd Puppy “Pancake”.

For the first few weeks, Pancake was a regular dumb, clumsy and awkward puppy.  Then he… kept doing that.  And getting weirder.  Pancake could run up the stairs just fine, but refused to go down them.  He’d trot right up to people… diagonally.  he’d travel most smoothly at a 45-degree angle, feet crossing like a fancy line-dance.   

 He was also… not bright.  If his dishes were moved, he wouldn’t be able to find them until walked to the new location  several times.   He also had a long-standing feud with the stop sign at the end of the drive, lunging and snapping at it every time they passed.  

He did mange to enjoy life. Helen’s husband, my Uncle Nicolas likes to play the accordion after his third glass of wine at family functions.  Every previous dog has either hid under the couch, or in Mazel’s case, growl menacingly until he stopped.  Pancake LOVED the accordion, and would howl along with it, tail wagging happily.  Helen breeds Morgan horses, and while they mostly hated the dogs and tried to murder any of the other dogs that came near, Pancake could walk right up to them, licking noses, and even allowed to approach foals.

“I swear, that dog only has half a brain.” Nicolas joked.

Eventually, Helen noticed that Pancake was walking into corners and furniture, mostly on his right side.  She took him into the vet, and they realized he was blind in his right eye, despite there being no apparent damage.  They took a scan of his brain, wondering if he’d been hurt at some point.

Turns out Uncle Nick was right.

Pancake’s right hemisphere was perfectly normally developed, but his left was literally about the size of a walnut.  The vet said it was an absolute miracle that he was alive at all, but he didn’t seem to be in any pain.  Helen commissioned my Mom, and she made him a padded right-side face mask becuase if he couldn’t see out of that side anyway, they ought to protect his eye.  

Pancake lived to be an astonishing 12 and a half, half blind and friend of the horses.