The eyes are pretty amazing organs. And since we and our dogs only have two they should be taken care of. Which leads me to my story.
The other morning when I let the dogs out to go potty, I noticed the Dickens was squinting a bit in one eye. So I scooped him up and brought him inside, set him on the grooming table and took a closer look. Yep, there was definitely an issue. His third eyelid (which is the membrane that comes up from the inside corner of the eye) was raised, his eye looked painful and I could see a cloudy spot. And as I peered closer, I could actually see an abrasion on the surface of his eyeball.
I was actually scheduled to take a friend to a doctor’s appointment in Spokane that morning, so I quickly called my vet and asked if I could drop Dickens off on the way to have that eye checked out.
This picture is a bit blurry, but I wanted to show the abrasion (which is actually a scratch on the cornea) which is in that cloudy area.
He was started on eye medication and now several days later is looking much better.
But, the thing I want to empathize is this, if your dog shows any signs of an eye issue; squinting, discharge, raised third eyelid, etc (like Dickens had), please do not try to medicate with something you have on hand. Get them to the vet as soon as possible. Eye injuries (which is what Dickens had. And we don’t know what happened, but he obviously scratched the surface of his eye. It could’ve been another dogs’ toenail, it could have been a piece of debris from the yard, etc) are something that needs to be seen asap and diagnosed and treated properly. If you put the wrong medication in an injured eye you could damage it further.
And that is your health tidbit for the day brought to you by Dickens 🙂