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My parents dauchsand, Princess, which is 14 years old; vision got really bad yesterday. She starts to go in circles and follows the wall. One doctor said cataracts and another said something else. My parents as lazy and cheap as they are don't want to take her to a specialist or do some online research. She is technically my moms dog and since my mom took a short trip she had a hard time sleeping. I'm really concerned my parents will just put her down because they don't want to deal with it and come up with some bs god forgiving excuse that it was justified. I've already put a lot of my time and a little money to get her some supplements that are slowly helping for a dislocated tendon in her front left paw. She is waking great but her vision is going down and I don't know if this is an after affect of the horrible pain meds she was on.
Any help for natural ways to help this lovely dogs vision would be most appreciated.
There isn't anything you can do about a dog going blind, except to keep a room with the same floor pattern. Dogs adapt really well to blindness. Vision is not their most important sense.
They learn where everything is, so it is best to not rearrange the furniture.
There are no natural remedies that will fix the vision. If it's cataracts, there is a surgery but it's expensive. Blind dogs do just fine as long as the furniture placement is kept the same.
If the vision loss is due to glaucoma, she will need to be seen regularly by a vet as that can become quite painful for the dog.
Vision loss in older dogs could be related to diabetes as well. While many dogs adjust to vision loss, mine didn't.
I would suggest having the dog checked for diabetes.
my now deceased Abbey had diabetes which caused her to lose her vision and rather quickly too But she did great and never acted like it made any difference in her world. It was just up to ME to make sure the furniture placement remained the same and to make sure the backyard remained free of limbs or anything that might cause her harm aka snakes!!! It would never had occurred to me to have her put down due to loss of sight!!!
Put mats on floor with different textures by her food/water, door to go out, and any steps. Block off stairs. Digs can learn the textures with their feet and know where they are.
Never let her loose where she could get run over, fall off cliff, etc.
There are no natural remedies that will fix the vision. If it's cataracts, there is a surgery but it's expensive. Blind dogs do just fine as long as the furniture placement is kept the same.
If the vision loss is due to glaucoma, she will need to be seen regularly by a vet as that can become quite painful for the dog.
(*So tired of this site being so limited on being able to rep a great post! This is one I'll rep by quoting it.)
I will add that a friend of mine - many years ago - had a dachshund who went blind, and she (the owner) didn't even realize it until she was visiting my house one day. We were watching the dogs roam around my backyard, and noticed that her dog kept bumping into the lawn chairs. When I said that I thought something was wrong with Oinky (yep, that was the dog's name) she took her to the vet and discovered that her dog was completely blind. The reason she hadn't noticed? Oinky knew layout of her home and could navigate it (and her yard) without ever walking into an object. Dogs get along very well when blind, so long as they are familiar with the landscape. Their olfactory senses do help them greatly too...and if they have a canine companion, they can navigate unknown territory by following their friend.
So long as your parents' dog isn't suffering from any pain due to her blindness, there would be absolutely NO reason to euthanize. At first she may seem disoriented, but a dog who loses its vision will very quickly adapt.
btw, huge kudos to you for caring about this little dog.
my now deceased Abbey had diabetes which caused her to lose her vision and rather quickly too But she did great and never acted like it made any difference in her world. It was just up to ME to make sure the furniture placement remained the same and to make sure the backyard remained free of limbs or anything that might cause her harm aka snakes!!! It would never had occurred to me to have her put down due to loss of sight!!!
No, blindness is not a reason to euthanize and neither is diabetes. However, I have heard of people euthanizing for those reasons.
As I said, most dogs adjust very well to losing their sight. My basenji didn't - he was obviously uncomfortable, stressed, and unhappy at not being able to see. We ended up doing the cataract surgery and he regained sight in both eyes, but developed a severe infection in one and ended up losing that eye. So I had a pirate dog!
Seems my parents won't euthanize her anymore but they aren't willing to make much accommodations like mats or anything.
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But she did great and never acted like it made any difference in her world. It was just up to ME to make sure the furniture placement remained the same and to make sure the backyard remained free of limbs or anything that might cause her harm aka snakes!!! It would never had occurred to me to have her put down due to loss of sight!!!
