My Dog Maddie is now blind

[MaddiesMom]

Hi everyone! My name is Donna and I have a six year old female Cocker Spaniel named Maddie. She went very fast from seeing, to cataracts to glaucoma to being blind. It has been very hard on us, me especially. I have cried and then I feel like I am not helping her by being this way. The pressure in her eye is finally down (due to several meds) and now that a few days have passed I am wondering if having her eye removed might be in her best interest. I think her regular vet is just letting us stew so to speak, giving us time to think what would be in her best interest. I am thinking that going to a vet opthamologist(sp?) might be a good idea. We have another appointment on Monday to have her pressure checked once again. Any help or guidance you guys can give me would be very very much appreciated.

[Bonnie and Pugsly]

Good luck...I know how hard it is. I have learned if we don't learn to accept it they have a hard time accepting it. I have a Pug (pugsly) who was just diagnosed with SARD and had a hard time but as i'am doing better so is he... And that is such a relief to me. I also have a cat named Maddie so i love ur dogs name. I don't know how i could deal with deciding to remove, that would be very difficult I hope and pray it works out for u... I took Pugsly to a specialist and glad I did. Regular vets didn't seem to help us. GOOD LUCK Donna

[Blinddogs.net]

Hi Donna... and welcome to the forum

I'm so sorry that you and Maddie are going this.. and though I haven't had to deal with glaucoma & eye pressures myself.. from everything I've heard from others, deciding to remove the eye(s) to relieve the pain, eliminate med cost, risk of eye injury etc. once the dog is already blind ends up being a huge relief for both the owner, and the dog. Please keep us posted on how Maddie is doing okay?

[jeanettel]

Our dog's Right eye was removed on July 22, 2010 only to find the left eye was blind. We felt we didn't have a choice and needed to bring relief to him so the decision to remove the eye was easier for us. However, we are grieving for our dog and I find myself tearing up as I'm typing.
Our dog is not telling us he needs to go outside to relieve himself. I don't understand why he no longer tells us he needs to go outside but we are back to the basics with housebreaking. I am keeping him in a kennel in the house and taking him outside every two hours with lots of praise and treats for success. Any other ideas would be helpful.

jeanette

[Blinddogs.net]

Hi Jeanette.. and welcome to the forum

I'm guessing that this (lapse of being potty trained) might just be a temporary problem with your pup, since his surgery was fairly recent. Between the adjusting to blindness, and probably pain meds he might just be suffering a bit of confusion right now. When our dog first went blind she was having some accidents in the house (which she'd never done before) but started going outside again within a week or so. Did your dog use a doggy door to go out before, or how did he signal you that he needed to go out (bark, turning, looking at you etc.?) If you think that the blindness is making it harder for him to let you know you could always try training him to ring a bell hanging on a ribbon by the door? Please let us know how things go.. and I hope this will be just a very short setback for you!