Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Anyone have a blind dog? one with SARDS? Advice on that and the vet in general
Sorry- this is long . . . We recently found out our 6 yr. old Papillon has gone blind. I feel like a jerk for not noticing, but I thought he was just getting fatter and lazy. He has gained about 7 lbs in the past year (he was 15, now 22 and has always been a big Pap). Then he stopped chasing after bones and playing with his dog siblings. He became much more tolerant of my kids, before when the baby would hug him or come to pet him, he would run from him, but now he just sits there. I realize now he probably couldn't see him coming to hide! I thought since he was getting bigger, maybe he was out of shape. We started measuring his food as he was eating and drinking a lot and taking him on longer walks. We now keep him separated from the other dogs since he eats their food. He has always stolen food from the kids when possible too. But none of this helped with his weight, in fact he gained even more.
In December, his eyes looked a little red, but then it went away. It came back around Christmas and I made a vet appt for the first week in Jan. The vet thought he had an infection and said his laziness and weight gain was due to bad teeth. She gave us drops for his eyes and we made a followup a week later. His eyes were still red so she did a vision test and told us he was blind. We then had an appt with a dog opthamologist. She said she thought it was Lyme disease, had a blood test done and gave us four medications! The cost was $350. The next day I researched Lyme disease in dogs and knew he didn't have that. None of the symptoms fit. Of course, that test came back negative and she said at this point there was nothing she could do.
After further research, I believe he has SARDS. The opthamologist told me no, that his eyes were too far 'gone', that his eyes look like a dog that had SARDS for a while. I don't think that is a reason to rule it out. He has all the other symptoms (aside from hair loss), weak hind legs, weight gain, insatiable appetite, excessive thirst. She now wants to do further testing, though she says he will not regain eyesight. He has become more grumpy lately. He growls at the other dogs all the time when they play, he whines at nothing, and when you give him a treat, right in front of his nose, he searches for it for like 5 seconds (doesn't seem long, but you know dogs when they see a treat!). It's so sad. I don't know what to do. He barks at everything now too.
Re: Anyone have a blind dog? one with SARDS? Advice on that and the vet in general
I have a blind dog but no experience with SARDS. I can help answer any questions you have on training or general information for owning a blind dog, although if he went blind slowly he has probably acclimated pretty well. There are, however, some things you can do as an owner to make him feel safer/more comfortable.
Hopefully someone else will chime in specifically with SARDS info.
These might be valuable resources:
http://www.blinddogrescue.org/
http://www.eyevet.ca/sards.html