Remember the guy whose seeing eye dog led him and a bunch of other people out of the World Trade Center on 9/11? That was a pretty damn awesome dog. Of course, she was a seeing eye dog, so that almost goes without saying. But I find myself wondering: how would a seeing eye dog fare with zombies?
World War Z aside, it seems to me that being blind during the zombie apocalypse is pretty much a death sentence. (Or, you know, being me without my contacts. That’s a death sentence, too.) But, add in a seeing eye dog, well…
The dog is going to hear anyone coming a lot sooner than you will. And a lot sooner than a sighted person could see a zombie, I’m guessing. Likewise, the dog is going to *smell* a zombie in hiding (assuming zombies are wise enough, or lucky enough, to hide and then ambush you). The dog is also going to be expert at communicating and herding his person. But… with fast zombies, is that going to be enough? Can a dog move their person fast enough to get out of the way? Would the dog risk contracting zombie-dom by biting an attacking zombie?
Which leads to a slightly more general question of whether or not a dog (seeing eye or not) could take down a zombie. They’d have to deal with the same problems we would – pain will not stop the zombie. Normally mortal wounds would not stop the zombie.
How would dogs fare, in general, in the zombie apocalypse? I doubt they would abandon us, seeing as hundreds of thousands of years have gone into our relationship with them. Cats, on the other hand, would be gone in an instant, I suspect.
I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if guide dogs somehow managed to protect their people through a zombie apocalypse. They are pretty damn awesome dogs.