My dog lost her eye sight last night!

[EmmaLuvR]

I am desperate for help you guys. I'll try to keep this short.

My parents got a half chow/half red healer when she was a puppy. She's now about 8 or 9. We live in a small town, far away from other towns, that only has 3 vets. They all would rather work on horses and cattle than dogs and other small pets.

My mom noticed about 2 weeks ago that our dog, Em, was acting funny. Suddenly she not only didn't want to go outside but she would growl when my mom would try to put a leash on her. Our main vet hates chows and refuses to examine them. Our backup vet was busy so my mom decided to give the 3rd vet a shot. It's been a disaster!!

First, no one here will groom chows and my mom has been desperate to groom her. So my mom took Em to the vet yesterday and the vet anesthetized her because Em was too worked up to even examine. The vet concludes that Em probably has arthritis in her back legs and gives my mom a pain killer for Em. Then the vet asks, "Can I clip (groom) your dog? I'm not a groomer but I LOVE to do it!" My mom took the opportunity and told the vet what length she wanted Em's hair to be.

So what happens? The vet SHEARS her!! My chow now has a lion cut and most of her under coat is gone!! I was so upset, clearly this vet doesn't know anything about chows. So THEN I find out that the vet anesthetized Em twice just to groom her. So she got anesthetized 3 times in one day. The vet also didn't tell my mom when to give Em her pain killer, my mom assumed the vet already gave it to Em so poor Em didn't get her pain killer.

So of course Em is a little wobbly and is acting funny at first when she comes home. The room she normally sleeps in has 4 stairs in it and I was dumb and didn't think to block them off so of course she fell down them less than an hour after she gets home

So I put her in another room for a few hours until she feels better and I let her back into her regular room and it seems like everything is fine. (She gets free roam of the 'back room' and the garage, the garage has a doggy door for her to go into a fenced in area so she can go to the bathroom.)

So later that night I hear Em in the garage and she's panicking! I go look for her and she's climbed halfway up a riding lawn mower and she can't figure out how to back down because a box she squeezed past to get there is in the way. I move the box and she gets down just fine. But then she tries to walk through the door to the backroom and she hits her right eye! I watch her walk around and she's bumping into a lot of stuff with her right side. I go back into another room for a second and I hear a sound and I run to the backroom and Em fell off the steps again but this time to the side of the steps which has never ever ever happened the entire time we've ever had pets. At that point she's panting really hard and she's started to pace around in circles and we call the vet and take her back.

The vet isn't sure what's wrong, she already ruled out rabies and, for the most part, diabetes. She doesn't want to do tests because it'll cost money (which we're fine with spending the money) and she wants to wait to see how Em reacts to the medication after 5 days. So the vet concludes that Em's problem is pain but she confirms that Em's right eye isn't detecting movement at all and her left eye is barely detecting movement. We didn't have a safe place for her to sleep that night and we had a funeral in another town today so we had the vet keep her overnight and today.

So we brought her home a few hours ago and she seems to be doing better movement-wise but she still can't see! She keeps twisting around in tight circles to her left, when I was walking her she would twist in circles if I was on her right, and if I was on her left she'd do better but still walk at a left angle or walk in much larger circles. She's still pacing in circles.

Guys, I'm freaking out. Her eyesight was fine until yesterday. I have no idea if she's reacting to the anesthesia or what! And I'm doubting this vet more and more as time goes on but we don't have any better options! I have to leave for college tomorrow and I just don't know what to do

[crickle_22]

Are you able to travel at all? Could you consider taking her to a vet out of town?? Seems to me that you have all had a tough run! With her falling and having issues you should make sure you can put her in a safe place, a room that doesn't have stairs.. get baby gates to block her in if need be... your dog needs to be able to recover without fear of her falling or injuring herself... because it's not about the money, more so about her being okay.
If the vet is telling you to wait a few days then maybe waiting it out would be best.. give the medication time to wear off and see how things go.
However, if you are still stressed and you don't trust your vet then take a trip and try somewhere else.

Don't stress too much about the shaving... if you haven't been able to groom her, she might have been matted and the vet might not have had a choice. Our Koda had that problem.. we had a groomer tell us the wrong type of brush to comb Koda and he got matted.. so when we brought him to our vets to have him fixed, shots and groomed.. they had to shave him. And the lion look was what we were left with.. and it's cute. However, the fur should grow back just fine... just make sure you are able to keep up with the coat if you are going to let it get long again. It's so imporatant!

I hope you are able to get the answers you need and that you catch a break soon! You both seem to need one!

Good luck!!

Crystal

[Merlin]

Most of the times, ( 9 times out of 10), overnight blindness is caused by diabetes.
You need to get your dog to a vet, because untreated diabetes can be dangerous and diagnosis can be done with a blood test or urine test.
It could be glaucoma or some other acute reaction to a present illness.

As for blind dogs, chows are not sight hounds, and vision is one of their least important senses - so she'll be fine.
Blind dogs do exceedingly well without vision. In most if not many cases, people don't even realize they are blind
in fact we specialize in blind chows.

Loads and loads of blind puppy mill rescues are re-homed daily and live fantastic lives, so there is no need for you to freak out.
Blindness does not affect dogs the same way it affects us. We are the ones who tend to make it a problem for the dog, based on our own concept of blindness.


Blind dogs run, play, walk on leashes, do stairs, paths and anything else that live can deal them. Right now, treat her like you always do.
What you can do, is get down on all fours and wander around your home base to see if there is anything that could inadvertently poke her in the eye (s) and remove those obstacles.
Try to keep your home in the same arrangement ( don't move furniture around if you don't have to).

There are plenty of online support groups too like blinddogs.com and blinddogs.net
Good luck