If you suspect there's an eye issue, have it seen. Make sure of what you're dealing with. If it ends up being something minor, then that's great; you're lucky. But if it's not, it's better to address it sooner rather than later before something worsens or something irreparable happens with that eye. Give us a call and explain your situation ASAP. We'll help you decide whether you need to come in for an emergency, if you need to go to an emergency clinic, or if we can set an appointment for the next day, and we can go from there.

You have to be careful with that. You don't want to grab things out of your cabinet, even if the issue is similar to an old problem. Don't be like, "Oh, my cat had this before, let me get these meds from before," because it may not be the same issue, or there may be something else going on that we need to address. If your cat will even let you, the only thing that you can do is to use sterile saline eyewash to flush an eye out. But the answer will always be to see a veterinarian. We can make sure that it's not something we need to treat specifically, and we'll treat it correctly.

In some situations, it's good care and hygiene, but there's a good number of eye diseases that have nothing to do with cleaning and with what you're doing. Many dogs out there don't need routine cleaning. They have big, regular-shaped faces. Their eyelids work correctly and they don't have a lot of hair on their face. With some dog breeds, you never even have to clean their eyes, technically. But there are some cases where you want to make sure that their hair's not getting in their face and they're not collecting a bunch of matter there that's causing irritation. Specific grooming is important, but thinking that if you clean your dog's eyes, it's not going to have any eye problems is not a realistic expectation.

Cleaning could help avoid some but not all problems. But if they have a lot of hair near their eyes and it gets gooped up, it can cause issues and infections. So get the hair trimmed in that area, or take one of those little cones and brush it free.

You'd be shocked that your dog is losing or has lost its vision. Unless it happened really quickly and it was both eyes at the same time, your dog can adjust to so many things. I used to work at a place where they had a blind cat and nobody knew the cat was blind. The cat had adjusted and knew where everything was. It could sense other things around it. So if your dog suddenly loses vision, it may bump into things. If it didn't happen suddenly, or it still has a good eye, it's still going to navigate well. So if something seems weird or off, if they seem to shy away or get startled coming around the corner, those could be some signs.

Different diseases can cause blindness. High blood pressure, kidney disease, thyroid disease, and such things can affect the eyes in ways that can create other symptoms.

I had a blind Cocker spaniel and if you didn't know him, you wouldn't know he was blind unless you moved the furniture a bit. And even then, they get a sense as they're moving, they can feel its presence on a different level. They can sense things. I think we've spent a lot of time moaning and groaning about why we can't see as well, and they just adjust. They have to adjust to survive.

It depends on what you call a test. Fingers in front of their face, making sure they blink appropriately, dropping a cotton ball, and having them track you without making noises are usually the things we do for vision tests. If they're really scared, all bets are off. They sort of stare at you blankly with their eyes open. You're like, "I think you can see me." It's some crude stuff, almost caveman-style testing to see if they can see or if they blink when something is coming toward them. Those are some common things we do.