We don’t want to darken your holidays (as it were), but it’s time we told everyone that Fritz has become blind.

About nine months ago, we started to notice that he was bumping into things. Then his eyes gradually clouded over. In August we took him to a veterinary ophthalmologist, who confirmed that he’d lost about 80% of his sight by then and would eventually lose all of it. It’s irreversible, and probably genetic. You can see the clouding in the photo, taken Christmas Day.

It doesn’t seem to have slowed him down much. He knows the buildings and the yard so well that he doesn’t need to see to navigate. He’s still happy and active, and he still catches rodents and birds, despite the handicap. As long as we don’t move things around, he doesn’t bump into the furniture. We expect he’ll still have a long, happy, mischievous life.