Hapi: The Deafblind Dog Following His Nose

Born unable to see or hear, Hapi began mantrailing at eight weeks old. On his first birthday, he became the first deafblind dog to pass Mantrailing Global’s Level 1 assessment.

When Hapi arrived home with Rosie and Robin Storey, they knew that his experience of the world would be different from that of most puppies. Hapi was born deaf and blind. He would need help learning how to navigate unfamiliar places, understand what was around him and communicate with the people in his life.

What they did not want to do was decide in advance what he would be incapable of.

Hapi, an Australian Shepherd, Poodle and Whippet cross, lives with the couple in Dumfries and Galloway. By all accounts, disability has done little to dampen his appetite for getting involved. He has been described by his family as curious, mischievous and frequently moving at considerable speed. Smell and touch give him much of the information that sight and hearing provide other dogs.  

That nose, it turned out, was also very good at finding people.

Finding a sport that suited Hapi

Hapi started mantrailing when he was only eight weeks old, working with trainer and behaviourist Caroline Johnson of Paddaburn Canine Adventures.  

Mantrailing is a scent-based dog sport in which a dog is asked to locate a particular person by following their individual scent trail. The dog is given a scent article connected to that person and then works out where they have gone. Rather than following a handler around a predetermined course, the dog does much of the decision-making. Mantrailing Global describes the activity as a way for dogs to use their natural hunting and scenting abilities in a controlled setting.  

For Hapi, this mattered. He could not watch somebody disappear into the distance or listen for a voice ahead, but neither of those things was necessary for the job he had been given. The information he needed was available through his nose.

Training also gave him experience of places and surfaces he might otherwise have found more difficult to negotiate. As his confidence grew, Rosie introduced stairs, kerbs, unfamiliar locations and different terrain. The aim was not to make Hapi behave as though he could see and hear. It was to help him become more confident at finding his own way through the world.

Mantrailing itself is unusually adaptable. Dogs work individually rather than all at once, and Mantrailing Global says the sport can include dogs of different ages, breeds and abilities, including dogs with disabilities and those who struggle with confidence or reactivity.  

Eleven minutes

Hapi had to wait until his first birthday before he was old enough to attempt Mantrailing Global’s Level 1 assessment.

The task involved following the scent of one person along a trail of between 200 and 400 metres. The trail had been laid 30 to 60 minutes before Hapi started, meaning the person he was looking for was already gone by the time he was presented with their scent. In mantrailing terminology, a trail that has been sitting for 30 minutes or longer is considered an “aged trail”.  

The assessment took place in Rockcliffe, Cumbria. Hapi was given the scent article and set off with Rosie.

Eleven minutes later, he found the hidden person.

With that, Hapi became the first deafblind dog to pass Mantrailing Global’s Level 1 assessment.  

It is an impressive result for any young dog. In Hapi’s case, though, the route he took to get there says as much as the certificate.

Dog first, disability second

There is a temptation with stories about disabled animals to tell them entirely in terms of what they have “overcome”. Hapi’s deafblindness has not vanished, and there are situations in which it affects what he can do and how he needs to be supported. His family have had to think differently about communication, training and the environments they introduce him to.

But disability is only one fact about him.

Hapi still has the same need to investigate, learn, play and make choices that we expect from other dogs. His world contains information that he can access extremely well, even if some of the information humans tend to rely upon is unavailable to him.

Rosie has put it rather neatly: “There are more ways to understand the world than just sound and sight.”  

For a dog, smell is already an extraordinarily important source of information. Mantrailing gives that sense a very specific job. Hapi does not need to know what the person he is following looks like, and he does not need to hear them. He needs to identify their scent, follow it and keep working until he finds its source.

His disability therefore changes how he tackles the world without automatically excluding him from taking part in it.

What we assume a dog needs

Hapi’s story also raises a useful question about the limits people place on dogs before giving them the opportunity to show what they can do.

A blind dog may need an environment arranged with more thought. A deaf dog needs communication that does not depend on voice cues. A dog living with both requires still more adaptation. None of that means every activity will suit every disabled dog, or that an animal should be pushed into situations simply to prove that disability need not be limiting.

The individual dog still matters.

With Hapi, mantrailing happened to make sense. He enjoyed using his nose, the work encouraged independent problem-solving, and the training could be adapted around the way he gathered information. What began when he was eight weeks old developed gradually enough that, by his first birthday, a 200–400 metre aged trail was a challenge he was ready to attempt.

And he completed it in eleven minutes.

There are plenty of things Hapi cannot experience in the same way as another dog. There are also woods to explore, scent trails to unravel, people to find and apparently the occasional hanky belonging to his dad to steal.  

A different life does not have to be a lesser one. In Hapi’s case, it simply required the people around him to learn how he experiences it.