You wouldn’t know it by looking at Bonnie, but she has faced many challenges in her life. With her older brother’s assistance, the blind husky recently overcame her dread of stairs.
“She had to work her way up to it,” Bonnie’s mother, Victoria Pombeiro, reportedly told The Dodo. “The bottom of our house is split level, and for the first few weeks she only lived on the ground level and made no effort to come up to the kitchen area.”
Pombeiro decided not to push it because she knew Bonnie would try at her own pace. In addition, Wookie, her older brother, was there to assist her. “After a while, she’d do a couple of stairs and then lose confidence and go back down,” Pombeiro remarked.
“Then one day a friend came to visit, and we were chatting in the kitchen and there was something about the tone of my friend’s voice that just made Bonnie run all the way up to greet her. It was such a proud moment!”
The steps to return to the ground level had to be taken by Bonnie, who Pombeiro had rescued from Rushton Dog Rescue in the UK, with a little prodding. “I’d sit at the top or bottom of the stairs and just talk to her,” Pombeiro said. “Wookie would run up and down the stairs as if he was trying to show her what to do. It was adorable!”
The four-year-old disabled canine immediately warmed up to Wookie. He is constantly there to lead her on walks, and they like taking naps and playing together. “Bonnie is amazing, you’d never know she was blind,” she added. “She maps out a room, bumps into things once, and then learns where they are and never bumps into them again.”
Watch Bonnie go down the stairs for the first time here:
Since overcoming her phobia of stairs, Bonnie uses them frequently. Wookie by her side, though, increases the likelihood. “The one thing she relies on is the bell we put on Wookie's collar so she can hear where he is,”
Pombeiro stated. “She follows him around the house and sits right next to him — pretty much on top of him.”
Bonnie had already overcome a lot by the time she originally went to her forever home, including an animal sanctuary in China, injuries, and a difficult flight to England. She now spends each day with Wookie, her best friend.
“He was really patient with her when she first arrived,” Pombeiro said. “It was like he knew she
needed a bit of moral support.” Bonnie gets a second chance right now.
“To have gone through everything she's been through and still be so affectionate with both people and other dogs is just amazing,” Pombeiro added. “I can’t believe we were so worried about adopting a blind dog, she’s certainly shown us. She’s just such an inspiration and we’re so proud of her.”
