Vision problems

[KATS]

Hello. It's been years since I posted anything on the boards. My Rand is a Humane Society rescue so his age of about 7 years is a guess, but I think a fairly accurate guess. I?ve had him for about 5 ? years. I first suspected he was having vision problems about a 6 weeks ago. He started snapping his ?treats?out of my hand. It was strange because he sat so still until the treat actually touched his nose. I tried moving the treat around to see if he would follow the treat, and he didn?t.

 

We visited the vet earlier this month. According to the exam Rand can see - his eyes reacted to the light. The vet said it was probably a degenerative condition and would only get worse. In May they will have a visiting vet who is some kind of expert in optometry or something, so we plan on taking him back in then.

 

We moved into a new house this month and Rand?s vision problems are painfully obvious. He would walk straight into walls and trees and such. He has finally gotten fairly use to the layout of the house and yard. I?m taking care to use verbal commands and making noise so we don?t startle him.

 

I don?t really know what questions to ask. I guess I was just wondering if anyone has been through a similar experience and could give me some advice - both on how to treat/handle Rand and questions for the vet.

 

Kimberly

[Bounce]

I have a totally blind border collie mix. No light or shadows and his eyes weep and become infected easily. Right now, his inner eyelids are drawn halfway across his eye and are stuck there, probably inflamed from all the spring dust and dirt.

Tex has been blind since the age of about 5 mos. He is totally adjusted and relies heavily on sound and texture to get around. I keep up a conversation with him all the time we're outside so he can locate me. Theres lots of stuff he can do. He can "hold" the sheep, chase the frisbee with my other dogs, we play little tracking games with treats and he loves to climb and swim.

We have a very close bond. We are hoping some thing can be done for Tex surgically but I'm not optomistic because of all the recent eye infectionproblems we've had. If your dog has cataracts, they can be treated by the vet with the same operation used on people. Since his vision is eroding slowly, you and your dog will have time to adjust, just don't move the furniture around too much - Tex hates that.