Tika Eyes and Photos

SUMMARY: No major vision issues.

We visited a veterinary ophthalmologist today. No glaucoma, no cataracts (dogaracts?). She's got nuclear sclerosis (thickening of the lens), which affects middle-aged people as well as middle-aged dogs. Apparently it's worse in some dogs than in others. It makes people more farsighted (hence need for reading glasses) and in theory affects dogs the same way.

It could explain some of Tika's behavior in agility, said the doc, but it wasn't an obvious or definitive cause. He did note that agility people notice things like this much sooner than people with just pet dogs, because you'd never notice the subtleties in everyday life. Here's a decent article on the subject--this quote is telling: "Difficulty determining distances and range as the dog ages".

Still, we have an appointment tomorrow with our regular vet for a general checkup as well.

Meanwhile, here I am last weekend experimenting with, gasp, my shirt not tucked in--does it make me look like a champion handler?

And still more photos from Bamfoto: