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The Daily Mail reports that:
Basil the blind dog was picked up by rescuers who noticed he could not walk five yards without bumping into something.
Now, thanks to an innovative new gadget from America, Basil has been given a new lease of life - and his carers hope they will now be able to find a family to permanently house him.
The four-year-old Corgi cross has been given a special guard to wear around his head, which manufacturers call the 'Muffin's Halo'. The light-weight tubular metal ring stops Basil from bumping into objects, allowing him to run around freely without bruising himself. It is attached to his body with a harness and a pillow, which is fashioned to look like angel wings. The 'halo' is designed to be slightly longer and wider than the wearer and when it touches an object, it puts pressure on Basil's shoulders, teaching him to turn away.
Yes, the device is as simple as it sounds but it seems to work and the dog seems happy. Sometimes, going hi-tech just isn't necessary.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Wednesday July 09 2014, @01:20PM
Maybe someone should attach a "chirper"/"clicker" and then teach the dog to echolocate with it.
After all humans can do it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLziFMF4DHA [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob-P2a6Mrjs [youtube.com]
So I'm sure you can teach a dog to do it - not like their sense of hearing is worse than ours. Just need to provide a source of clicks/chirps.
As long as you can figure out reasonably accurately the location of an object that's making a soft/quiet noise, you can learn to echolocate - since all you are doing with echolocation is supplying appropriate noise to silent objects.
It doesn't take much energy to make a sound so you might be able to use the dog's motion as a power source. Or maybe teach the dog to change/charge the batteries or tell you to do so.