London Googler, please come back

I'm not as obsessed with the stat-counter at the bottom of this blog as I was when I first added it, but it's still fun to check it occasionally to see where my readers come from. A lot of folks come from my daughter's website, and some come through links kindly provided by other bloggers. A lot of people find this blog through Google searches, though this blog is rarely what they're looking for. Most of the Googlers don't stick around to read.

Oddly, the number-one Google search term that leads people here is "pictures of octagons." This comes up so often that I imagine finding pictures of octagons must be a common elementary school assignment.

There are apparently a lot of people who wonder whether Crocs and escalators are a dangerous combination, because those folks come here in large numbers, too. I always wonder if they decide to keep their comfortable shoes, toss them out, or play it safe and stay off escalators.

Then there are the people whose imaginations are captured, as mine was, by a song about a cleverly plotted prison escape. Those folks usually Google some variation of "get my lantern get my gun" or other brief snatches of the song's lyrics.

Occasionally -- not often -- someone finds this blog by searching for, well, actual "velvet sacks." This isn't the website those people wanted to find, either.

Up until very recently, it's been nothing but amusing to check out the Google searches that have brought people here, and it didn't bother me that they didn't stay long. A couple of days ago, that changed.

A Googler from London searched with a long string of words along these lines: "dog has primary glaucoma vet says both eyes must come out is it fair to the dog?" (This isn't an exact quote but my best recollection of it. My stat-counter is free, thus limited, and that search had already rolled off before I decided to write about it.) Those words led the person here -- exactly the right place to find some reassurance on that subject -- but the entries about Butch's blindness were too well buried to find quickly. The Googler came to this blog and left almost immediately.

My heart aches for that person. I remember the agony of trying to evaluate the rights and wrongs of an almost-identical situation, and I wouldn't wish it on anybody. I want to reach out to that person, to shout, "Come back, wait a minute, let me introduce you to Butch." I want him or her to read how little Butch's blindness has interfered with the quality of his life, how enthusiastically he goes about his doggy-business and how much joy he gives and receives in the course of the average day. I want to say that when the time comes for me to add another dog to this family, I wouldn't hesitate to adopt a blind dog or one with another type of special needs.

What I know now that I didn't know when Butch's eye problems began is that the condition of the animal's eyes is not nearly as important as the size of its heart, and that the capacity of the human heart will grow, too, for every day spent with such a dog.

Blind Dog Running

I think I'm gonna create another blog on just this subject.


UPDATE: Butch's blog is up -- at least the bare bones of it. The information there won't be new to regular Velvet Sacks visitors, but maybe, by putting it all in one place, it'll offer some comfort to someone else who needs it.