Anyones Dog lost an eye?

My friend had the very sad diagnosis yesterday for her Curly Coat Retriever of a Deep seated tumour in his eye. After an inconclusive biopsy at his vets he went to Cambridge Vet school for a scan and they found the tumour.

Dont know if its benign or not but specialist and oncologist have both recommended taking the eye out

She will be having more scans/xrays done to check for secondaries (or if the source of the tumour orignated elsewhere) before making a decision

Hes a special boy and has been a handful growing up and can be a bit 'sharp' with strangers and has been known to nip so shes is concerned that taking out an eye will make him worse (more inclined to nip if hes taken by 'suprise')

She would like to hear of other peoples experiences and how their dog coped with losing an eye

My Harley only has the one eye, although he lost it before we got him (he was only about 4/5 months when we got him though, and he still had his stitches in the week before we had him).

I used to find that he couldn't follow things properly, so for example, if you threw a ball, he couldn't chase it as he couldn't follow it, and if you threw a treat in the air for him to catch, he couldn't do it, so it just used to bounce off his head.

As he's got older though, he's much better. He can follow balls with perfection, and he can sometimes catch treats if I throw them high for him.

He is easily startled with some things, but I don't know whether this is down to the eye being gone, or just him being him.

He will sometimes walk into things, and especially if cars are parked on the pavement, and he turns round just before we get to it to nosey, he'll quite often bump into the car if I don't tell him to mind out.

When we rehomed him, the rehoming place told us to treat him like a blind dog in the sense of leaving furniture in the same place and not having things at eye level for him to bump into, but in all fairness, we don't do this anymore, and he is absolutely fine.

He's even started to do agility at our dog club, and although you need to tailor how you teach him certain things, it's totally possible and he really enjoys it

I almost forget that he's only got the one eye most of the time, as he's so "normal" other than being a dim wit lol

Yes, here`s my threads on Bandits loss of his eye.

It may help.

Once removed the loss of the eye did `nt make any difference at all, at first you just need to be careful coming up on his blind side, , just give a little warning, but to be honest after a time we forgot he had only one eye, and it did not seem to make any difference at all.



http://www.dogsey.com/showthread.php?t=99152

http://www.dogsey.com/showthread.php?t=99383

http://www.dogsey.com/showthread.php?t=100371

Yes. She bashed into things a few times but, did get used to it. She always kept me on her blind side then nothing could suprise her.

Just remember that if you go to stroke the blind side and you make her jump she may snap.

You will get used to people asking what happened. It gets quite annoying sometimes.

Hope friends dog is okay.

I did'nt really notice after a while. You just fall into a way of doing things slightly differently thats all.

My friend`s JRT has recently had her eye removed. She had little vision left in it and consequently kept banging / injuring it.
The op went well and she is fully recovered. The vet inserted a prosthetic, and the loss is not really noticeable - it just looks like she`s got her eye shut.
Since the Op, my friend says she is a much happier dog - no more pain.
Hope this helps.

My old lady Molly had to have her eye stitched up for 6 weeks due to having an ulcer. Thankfully she made a good recovery without having to have her eye removed but eventually suffered another ulcer in her other eye and eventually this made her really poorly and I ended up losing her in the end due to her immune system becoming very low and she couldn't handle it.
She was 18 at the time. If she'd have been younger and I'd had the option to have it removed, I would have done. She coped fantastically well with the lids stitched up; dogs really are amazing and just get on with life.
I would tell your friend not to worry, and to have patience and her doggy should be fine - hopefully he will make a super recovery and enjoy life to the full....