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When you sit in Amy Darrell’s warm and inviting kitchen, with her pack of fur babies at your feet at the table, warming their exposed bellies to the wood-burning stove and asking for pats and attention, it’s a scene of true hearth and home that represents the warmth of spirit she pours into everything she does with Bumper. Bumper is the now obliviously famous blind and deaf Double Merle Australian Shepherd/Poodle Cross that has stolen the internet and local community’s hearts – much like he loves to make off with the winter hats of visitors as part of his extra efforts at understanding influxes into his environment.

As one method among many where Amy acts as Bumper’s “service human”, giving him tools to help him understand his surroundings. “It’s a big, scary world out there, and he’s making up the story, but might be missing a piece or two. So, I help fill them in. It’s being aware all the time of how he is perceiving things. When we first got him we started with touch cues that put him on that next level of communication with humans. Anything to give him a sense that he knows what’s happening and has a sense of control, because he can be so out of the loop.”

Equal joy and responsibility, Amy and her daughter Faeron first met Bumper at eight weeks old when they were invited to play with a litter of six puppies at a Caledon farm in order to help socialize them. Bumper is the product of a complicated genetic abnormality that can often result in almost complete whiteness of colour, deafness or blindness (and this fella has the trifecta) – the only “odd puppy out” in the litter. “We were under the impression they all had homes. And then we met Bumper. And then we went back the next day. And the next day. And then it all fell into place. https://greatlivingspaces.com/committed-to-the-good-life-bumper-the-wonder-dog/

https://greatlivingspaces.com/outdoor-spaces/macks-park/