Eyesight Issues In Older Dogs

[GreyGirlQld]

I know this topic has been covered a couple of times in the past, but I was hoping to get some consolidated answers/opinions...

I have a near 11 year old greyhound who we adopted at 7 1/2 years old. He has always had a slight bluish tinge to his eyes, and a subtle cloudiness. Behaviourally, he's always been a bit of a grumpy old man - and *really* likes his personal space (i.e. if our other dog lies down near him, he'll huff and puff until she moves). Generally, though, he hasn't developed any particular clumsiness or problems that would suggest he's got major problems seeing things around him.

My questions are:

1. From your experience, how common are age-related / general eyesight issues in greyhounds?

2. Are there particular, even subtle, signs (behavioural, physical) that I should look out for, that would indicate a worsening of his eyesight?

3. Does anyone know of a good doggie eye specialist in the Brisbane (inner west or thereabouts) area? (and should my regular vet have the facilities to diagnose particular eye conditions?)

4. I've read on a couple of DOL topics that Vitamin E and bilberry (sp?) are good supplements to support eye health. Anything else that we should know about?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

[puggy_puggy]

Sounds like he just has general aging of the lense which occurs in all dogs as they get older. He could also have cateracts.

Your normal vet should be able to see and diagnose these two things quite easily. You may need to see a specalist for them to look at the back of the eyes as they have specialised equipment.

I would doubt that his not wanting to snuggle with other dogs is due to his eyesight at all. Some dogs just can't cope with snuggling and most likely grew up on their own with their own space.

Probably look for him bumping into things or getting a fright when you go to pat him.

[Sheridan]

I have my own 'grumpy old man', though not a greyhound. I have had him checked by a veterinary opthamologist because of his cloudy eyes and he does not have cataracts, just normal ageing lenses. I am very careful not to put my hands down in his 'blind spots'. If I drop something or there's something on the floor that I don't want him to get into, I shift him out of the way by distracting him with food or backing him up and physically getting between him and the object in order to pick it up. I shift a lot of things out of his way with my feet before picking things up.

[sandgrubber]

I know this topic has been covered a couple of times in the past, but I was hoping to get some consolidated answers/opinions...

I have a near 11 year old greyhound who we adopted at 7 1/2 years old. He has always had a slight bluish tinge to his eyes, and a subtle cloudiness. Behaviourally, he's always been a bit of a grumpy old man - and *really* likes his personal space (i.e. if our other dog lies down near him, he'll huff and puff until she moves). Generally, though, he hasn't developed any particular clumsiness or problems that would suggest he's got major problems seeing things around him.

My questions are:

1. From your experience, how common are age-related / general eyesight issues in greyhounds?

2. Are there particular, even subtle, signs (behavioural, physical) that I should look out for, that would indicate a worsening of his eyesight?

3. Does anyone know of a good doggie eye specialist in the Brisbane (inner west or thereabouts) area? (and should my regular vet have the facilities to diagnose particular eye conditions?)

4. I've read on a couple of DOL topics that Vitamin E and bilberry (sp?) are good supplements to support eye health. Anything else that we should know about?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Old age is relatively rare in greyhounds, unfortunately. But I've never heard that they are more or less prone to loss of eyesight than other breeds. Grumpyness has not been a feature of the blind dogs I've looked after (in kennels). Some are a bit tentative and passive. Some just stumble and bump into things. If you move furniture and the result is the dog bumping into the thing in its new position and avoiding the place where it used to be, I'd say serious loss of eyesight. Blurring of vision is hard to identify in older dogs, cause they generally don't move fast enough to bump into even a blurry object.

If your guy has cataracts, it may take a vet opthamologist to provide an accurate diagnosis of the type and seriousness and prognosis. But unless you're thinking of doing surgery -- probably not advised for a dog of that age -- I don't see what use the diagnosis will be.

[corvus]

I don't think it matters that much either way whether he is going blind. Eyesight is the most expendable of senses for dogs. Penny started going blind when she was about 10 and when we put her to sleep at 13 1/2 she was still acting like she could see most of the time, despite signs at other times that she could see very little, like me waving at her from a few metres away or her no longer responding to hand signals for all that she was looking right at me eagerly awaiting instructions. She was also very nearly stone deaf and yet she still managed to piece her environment together pretty well from blurry eyesight, muffled sound and smell. I didn't let her off leash much towards the end as she would lose us and follow some random strangers instead, or behave unpredictably which was as much to do with her senility as anything else.

Anyway, as her eyes started to go first, I thought she would be blind before hearing became a problem, but as it turned out her hearing deteriorated much faster than her eyesight and my biggest problem was that most of the ways I had to communicate with her where verbal and she couldn't see enough detail to grasp hand signals a lot of the time. If I had my time again, I don't know that I would have done things any differently. Someone suggested to me that I start using different essential oils around the place to tell her if something was dangerous, of if she should step up or to just lay trails for her so she could find her way around, but I didn't need to. By the time it got that bad eyesight was the least of her worries.

We think that because sight is so important to us that it's very distressing if one of our dogs starts to lose their sight, but they lose their sight gradually and learn to adapt. You can help them along, but unless you want to pay for surgery, there's not much else you can do.

[GreyGirlQld]

I am very careful not to put my hands down in his 'blind spots'. If I drop something or there's something on the floor that I don't want him to get into, I shift him out of the way by distracting him with food or backing him up and physically getting between him and the object in order to pick it up. I shift a lot of things out of his way with my feet before picking things up.

Sounds like this will be the way of things into the future, if Jack's eyesight is affected - at the moment, in any case, he doesn't seem distressed or particularly concerned about things, but he can be a little 'surprised' if he doesn't get any warning that someone or something is about to be in his space.

I don't think it matters that much either way whether he is going blind. Eyesight is the most expendable of senses for dogs.

...

We think that because sight is so important to us that it's very distressing if one of our dogs starts to lose their sight, but they lose their sight gradually and learn to adapt. You can help them along, but unless you want to pay for surgery, there's not much else you can do.

Thank you to everyone for your responses. I think we'll just keep an eye on things (excuse the pun! ) for the time being - as has been pointed out, the only real treatment option (if Jack's eyesight is actually degenerating) would be surgery, and at this stage I don't know that this is a path we would necessarily go down (possibility of success, benefits vs. risk, etc.). So we'll check in with our regular vet, and maybe look into some general preventative options if available.

Plus, I think the personality thing is just Jack... from all accounts he's always been a bit of a grump (albeit a lovable grump!).