a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Tika Eyes and Photos

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

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:






6 comments:

  1. the untucked shirt is a way better look :)

    glad to hear it's not cataracts.

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  2. glad it's not dogaracts too. And the untucked shirt is a good fashion statement..plus more comfortable..right? The dogs look great in the photos...like they're having a blast! Hope you did too!

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  3. weird my comment didn't' show up

    that's what Brody has too -and my vet said "nobody else would notice" when we went 3 years ago ... I am absolutely sure it affects vision more then they realize ( I mean, really, how can a dog tell us things are blurry?)

    On our walk yesterday I came out of the woods ahead of the dogs -called -they all came charging out-Brody stopped dead in the sunshine and obviously could not see me in front of him until I called hisname again - then he raced up to me - but he has excellent hearing still so I'mnot sure if he really saw me even then. Hate aging ...

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  4. Both the opth. and my regular vet commented that people who have dogs who compete in various activities such as hunting, agility, whatever, notice these things much sooner than anyone else does with their just-pet dogs. I keep thinking over and over about Tika vanishing into the tunnel, not coming out, and then coming out looking confused. I hope I don't have to give up agility with her, but I'll probably have to give up dreams of top tens.

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  5. yup ... I hear you - Brody is a fabulous little guy but I feel his retirement creeping closer with lots ofneat goals we could have attained "if only" ...

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  6. I know! Just when they get good, they're old.

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