Puppies And Vet Examinations

[koalathebear]

Elbie gets very excited at the vet. There's nothing we can do to calm him down. From the time he was little, the vet's assistants used to wind him up a LOT with the loud excited voices, boisterous patting and rolling and that continued through to puppy classes and now unfortunately the vet's is associated as a place of 'I am happy and excited and I will not be quiet'.

That being said, he will generally sit and stand still for examination and the vet can vaccinate him with no problems. At home, we can also put eye ointment in his eyes with no problems, clean his eyes, open his mouth, look at his teeth etc. The problem was today we took him in to check out some redness of his eye plus some persistent eye goop. Hoover had something similar a few weeks back and some ointment cleared it up but he seems to have passed it onto Elbie.

Elbie was put on the table and then had to be held still as the applied small strips of paper coated with iodine to the front of each eye! Ouch! The paper was being stuck right on the front of the eyeball and then she'd push his eye closed to disperse the iodine. Elbie did NOT like this at all. After she did the first eye he would not let her do the other eye. He was wriggling like crazy and in the end it took three people to hold him and they were only able to put a tiny bit of iodine into the other eye before giving up.

THEN the vet needed to take a look at each eye with a large big black light (purple UV light or something). She was able to look into his first eye but he wriggled too much for her to see the second eye. They tried to do it to him on the floor but he backed into the corner while she was holding the light up near his head. He didn't bark, growl or look angry – he just didn't want any more eye-poking or lights.

He was given some medication but we were told that if it persisted, we'd have to bring him so that he could be sedated so that they could do a thorough check-up. They made it sound a bit like it was unusual for Elbie to be resistant. As mentioned he's ok with injections and we are able to desensitise him to a lot of things but I'm not sure how I would go about desensitising him to having something shoved INTO his eye like that. Any suggestions???

[poodlefan]

Elbie gets very excited at the vet. There's nothing we can do to calm him down. From the time he was little, the vet's assistants used to wind him up a LOT with the loud excited voices, boisterous patting and rolling and that continued through to puppy classes and now unfortunately the vet's is associated as a place of 'I am happy and excited and I will not be quiet'.

That being said, he will generally sit and stand still for examination and the vet can vaccinate him with no problems. At home, we can also put eye ointment in his eyes with no problems, clean his eyes, open his mouth, look at his teeth etc. The problem was today we took him in to check out some redness of his eye plus some persistent eye goop. Hoover had something similar a few weeks back and some ointment cleared it up but he seems to have passed it onto Elbie.

Elbie was put on the table and then had to be held still as the applied small strips of paper coated with iodine to the front of each eye! Ouch! The paper was being stuck right on the front of the eyeball and then she'd push his eye closed to disperse the iodine. Elbie did NOT like this at all. After she did the first eye he would not let her do the other eye. He was wriggling like crazy and in the end it took three people to hold him and they were only able to put a tiny bit of iodine into the other eye before giving up.

THEN the vet needed to take a look at each eye with a large big black light (purple UV light or something). She was able to look into his first eye but he wriggled too much for her to see the second eye. They tried to do it to him on the floor but he backed into the corner while she was holding the light up near his head. He didn't bark, growl or look angry – he just didn't want any more eye-poking or lights.

He was given some medication but we were told that if it persisted, we'd have to bring him so that he could be sedated so that they could do a thorough check-up. They made it sound a bit like it was unusual for Elbie to be resistant. As mentioned he's ok with injections and we are able to desensitise him to a lot of things but I'm not sure how I would go about desensitising him to having something shoved INTO his eye like that. Any suggestions???

constant and frequent handling by strangers would help. Teaching a 'steady' or 'stay' might assist.

for this particular issue, I'd suggest you practice putting ordinary sterile saline drops into his eye. It wont' hurt him and its good practice for him to remain still until released and rewarded.

[koalathebear]

constant and frequent handling by strangers would help. Teaching a 'steady' or 'stay' might assist.

for this particular issue, I'd suggest you practice putting ordinary sterile saline drops into his eye. It wont' hurt him and its good practice for him to remain still until released and rewarded.

OK, thanks - will definitely try this. He will stand still for us to smear ointment into his eyes but having the physical object of the saline dropper would be good practice. Are there special saline drops that I can buy for dogs?

[poodlefan]

constant and frequent handling by strangers would help. Teaching a 'steady' or 'stay' might assist.

for this particular issue, I'd suggest you practice putting ordinary sterile saline drops into his eye. It wont' hurt him and its good practice for him to remain still until released and rewarded.

OK, thanks - will definitely try this. He will stand still for us to smear ointment into his eyes but having the physical object of the saline dropper would be good practice. Are there special saline drops that I can buy for dogs?

My vet says ordinary (plain) human ones are fine.

[aussielover]

Elbie gets very excited at the vet. There's nothing we can do to calm him down. From the time he was little, the vet's assistants used to wind him up a LOT with the loud excited voices, boisterous patting and rolling and that continued through to puppy classes and now unfortunately the vet's is associated as a place of 'I am happy and excited and I will not be quiet'.

That being said, he will generally sit and stand still for examination and the vet can vaccinate him with no problems. At home, we can also put eye ointment in his eyes with no problems, clean his eyes, open his mouth, look at his teeth etc. The problem was today we took him in to check out some redness of his eye plus some persistent eye goop. Hoover had something similar a few weeks back and some ointment cleared it up but he seems to have passed it onto Elbie.

Elbie was put on the table and then had to be held still as the applied small strips of paper coated with iodine to the front of each eye! Ouch! The paper was being stuck right on the front of the eyeball and then she'd push his eye closed to disperse the iodine. Elbie did NOT like this at all. After she did the first eye he would not let her do the other eye. He was wriggling like crazy and in the end it took three people to hold him and they were only able to put a tiny bit of iodine into the other eye before giving up.

THEN the vet needed to take a look at each eye with a large big black light (purple UV light or something). She was able to look into his first eye but he wriggled too much for her to see the second eye. They tried to do it to him on the floor but he backed into the corner while she was holding the light up near his head. He didn't bark, growl or look angry – he just didn't want any more eye-poking or lights.

He was given some medication but we were told that if it persisted, we'd have to bring him so that he could be sedated so that they could do a thorough check-up. They made it sound a bit like it was unusual for Elbie to be resistant. As mentioned he's ok with injections and we are able to desensitise him to a lot of things but I'm not sure how I would go about desensitising him to having something shoved INTO his eye like that. Any suggestions???

That is completely normal for a puppy.

Do you think the second eye was perhaps more painful?

If it was me I would have taken him out the back and got a nurse to hold him- they are often much quieter when strangers are handling them.

I really don't think sedation is neccessary just to look in his eye. He probably just needed some time to calm down.

Are they concerned about an ulcer or something?

[koalathebear]

That is completely normal for a puppy.

Do you think the second eye was perhaps more painful? If it was me I would have taken him out the back and got a nurse to hold him- they are often much quieter when strangers are handling them.

I really don't think sedation is neccessary just to look in his eye. He probably just needed some time to calm down.

Are they concerned about an ulcer or something?

Unfortunately they're busy so don't really have the time to let him calm down ... but yeah, once he calms down he's as placid as a cow. He is especially excitable at the vet's. They've ruled out an ulcer or any nasties fortunately. A few weeks ago, Hoover had disgusting thick green goop in his eye. It was like mucous and I'd get it out with my fingers and be pulling it out and it would be like a long worm The vet saw him immediately and said it was probably conjunctivitis and gave him meds which fixed the problem pretty quickly and his eyes are fine now. Elbie started getting reddish eyes and eye goop - although nowhere near as disgusting as Hoover's had been. That's why we took him in today for a check-up. Fortunately it doesn't seem too serious and we're hopeful the meds will fix him up.

He's ok with getting teeth checked, the needle, the poking and prodding. He even endures the thermometer up the butt with equanimity but I guess the eye-poking was a bit beyond him. OH was full of sympathy - he hates having his eyelids flipped at the optometrist so he was cringing when Elbie was having iodine paper stuck in his eye.