One day on a busy street in West Philadelphia, a scraggly looking Samoyed was found wandering. A neighbor took him in, thinking he would be a good pet for her son. She called him Sam, I think it was a law in Philadelphia, all male Samoyeds were named Sam. He was a typical Samoyed except for one small thing - he had been born without eyes. It made it difficult for him to navigate strange places, and the stairs in his new home were uncarpeted wood. So he stayed outside in a small shaded yard. He had a doghouse, food and water, but not much else. Those of us who passed by regularly stopped to fuss with him, his sweet woo-woos were just a joy to hear. He stayed there for a year and a half until the owner moved and decided she couldn't take him to her new house. Thank goodness!

One day in early December it was about to storm. I mentioned to my husband that Sam's owners were looking for a home for him, and he demanded that I go get him before the storm hit. It didn't take any arm twisting, I was there and back in mere seconds! The first thing I did was walk him back to the water bowl on the first floor, then I watched in amazement as he wandered through the house never once bumping into any wall. He would bump into chairs and tables - once. Never again would that happen unless we moved a piece of furniture without replacing it properly. He could run through that house just as fast as any of the other dogs. And we put rubber treads on the stairs, which helped him tremendously.

I was expecting it to be a real challenge to train Sam. After all, he was blind. But I don't think that he ever knew that he was blind. I think he just wondered why we never bumped into anything. We did have to learn a few extra commands. When he went up a flight of stairs for the first time, I would say "up" for each step, conversely I would say "down" for each step as he descended. When we called him we would clap so he could follow the sound.  "Careful" meant slow down, there is something in front of you. To help him get out of the car, we would tap the ground with our foot, and say "jump" and out he would fly! We called it his leap of faith.

As his world expanded from that small yard he had been in, we watched with delight as his confidence grew. Initially he would walk with a high step, never knowing when there would be a curb or some other change in level. We would let him off leash in limited situations at first, and he learned to trust us to shout "up" or "careful" when he needed to be aware of anything. It meant we couldn't stand and chat when he was off leash, we had to watch him at all times. But the first time we saw him really run, not the hesitant high stepping he had been doing, what a day! He would run after the other dogs, listening to the jingle of their collar tags. On bridle trails in the park, he would feel the change in texture and angle back toward the center of the path.

One of the more curious aspects of owning Sam was that no other dog ever attacked him. He looked like a dog with his eyes shut, so he was never able to stare at any other dog. No staring, no challenge. And my dogs learned to play differently with him. He and Vesta would play 'bite-face', and when he lost track of where she was, Vesta would reach up a paw and guide his head back to hers. Maggie was very jealous with her toys, so I was amazed the day she let Sam play tug with her and her Bouda tug. She would even put it back in his face when he lost track of it. From watching him we figured that he had never really had a time to play. Watching him learn to listen for the Kong to bounce before he ran to get it, well, there were so many moments like that. We never tired of watching as his world expanded.

When people saw the beautiful fluffy white Sammy, they would exclaim and I would tell him to go say hello. He would run over to them and adored being fussed over. Finally the question would come. "What's wrong with his eyes?"

And we'd always respond that he didn't have any - with a bit of a smile because the response was invariably the same. "But how does he see?" We always said that he doesn't, but that wasn't really true. He saw his world through us, and we saw our world through him. We shared the world in ways that I've never shared with any other dog. It was a relationship that was very special, and so unique.

Would I take in a blind dog again? In a heartbeat.