Trigger's blind faith

The story of a black-and-white beating spaniel shows how a keen sense of smell can compensate for a lack of sight, says David Tomlinson

- David Tomlinson

FOR HUMANS, SIGHT is our dominant sense, not smell. For dogs, it’s the other way round and it is generally reckoned that a dog’s sense of smell is between 10,000 and 100,000 times better than ours.

It’s all down to the number of olfactory receptors in the nose. Apparently, we have a mere six million, whereas a dog has around 300 million. In addition, the part of the dog’s brain that sorts out and processes scents is, in proportion, some 40 times larger than ours. We see the world though our eyes, but a dog ‘sees’ it through its nose.

Loss of sight for us is a disaster as it stops us doing so much. It’s not nearly such a problem for a dog, thanks to that wonderful nose, as the story of Trigger the blind springer spaniel proves so conclusively. Trigger was bought as an eight-week-old puppy in 2007 to be a beater’s dog for Marion Corden’s partner, Butch. Marion and Butch had only had him for a month when he was diagnosed with detached retinas, a condition that was inoperable. Their vet warned them that he would eventually go blind and would have to have his eyes removed.

Marion and Butch faced a difficult decision: should they keep him, despite his problem, or would it be kinder to have him put down? Many of the people they spoke to reckoned that the latter was the best thing to do, arguing that a blind dog wasn’t much use for anything, let alone beating. However, Trigger had already endeared himself to them and they thought that he deserved a life, though appreciating it would be a restricted one, and that the chances of him going for normal walks, let alone shooting, weren’t good.