blind dogs

TikToker EchoBadlistener has his hands full with four dogs: Morty (deaf and blind), Echo (deaf and visually impaired), Winston (overweight), and Frank, who, in his owner’s estimation, is “not too smart.”

But even though Morty can’t see or hear, he enthusiastically greets his owners whenever they come home. A recent TikTok video that has been seen over 9,000 times shows how Morty has given his high-energy hellos to his owners over the past four years.

Although Morty sometimes takes a little while to find their exact location, once he zeroes in, he leaps up and grabs them with his paws or makes excited doggie donuts in the middle of the kitchen.

So, how does Morty know when his family is home if he can’t hear or see? Dogs have an incredible sense of smell up to 10,000 times greater than a human’s. So he picks up on their scent when they enter the house. He is also probably very sensitive to familiar vibrations, such as a door opening and closing, and can feel footsteps when people walk across the floor.

Morty and his sister Echo are deaf and have vision problems due to birth defects that come from breeding merle dogs. Merle is a genetic pattern in a dog's coat that causes irregular patches of color on a lighter background. It's also known as dapple in some breeds. When two merle dogs breed, each puppy in the litter has a 25% chance of becoming a double merle. Double merles have a very high chance of having congenital eye defects and hearing impairment due to a lack of hair pigment in the inner ear.

But being deaf and blind doesn't stop Morty from recognizing his owners and showing them what a good doggo he is.