Sadie - suddenly blind

[KiltedFlower]

Sadie is a 5 year old mutt. Looks like she might be part min-pin or she might be part whippet - colorings of a doberman, shape of a whippet. She is a Save-a-Sato dog from Puerto Rico. Was adopted from the Sterling Animal Shelter in Sterling, MA. She has had no health problems (except one episode right after she was fixed when she was a very little puppy - we didnt know she was only 4 weeks old until months later... and the shelter wouldn't let us bring her home without the spaying).

In the past 3 months or so we've been noticing her ribs and spine have been sticking out more but we attributed it to her not being so active in the cold (we live in central MA). About 3 weeks ago we noticed she was loosing her muscle mass - and being a hyper running dog she's always had big leg and chest muscles. We called the vet and told him what was going on and he asked that we bring in urine and feces samples but that he didn't want to see her. He called us later that night and said her feces was normal but her urine showed an elevated protein count. However since her energy had picked up that day that we should just monitor her weight. She hasn't lost any more but she hasn't gained any either. We started feeding her more in hopes of putting some weight on her.

Last weekend (Feb. 1) she came up to my dad and her right eye was swollen shut. No idea what happened. He called the vet and the vet again didn't want to see her but told dad to go pick up some doggie triple antibiotic eye ointment. For the past week we've been following vet's orders and putting some of this ointment in her eye and using hot packs a couple of times a day.

Today (Feb. 9) her right eye was looking much better this morning. She was opening her eye but acting like she couldn't see out of it - had that vacant look. I let her out around 1:45pm and she ran around the yard doing her normal thing - not hyper but normal check out all the edges and look over at the neighbors - managing the snow and ice just fine. When she came in she followed me around the kitchen watching me fix a snack then she went and curled up on the couch in her blanket. Around 3:00 (i don't know the time) she came up to me at my computer and I think she actually bumped into the chair. I turned to look at her and she looked spooked but she turned and walked out of the room without noticable problems.

5:00pm my dad comes home from some errands and Sadie didn't come greet him at the door or come greet him while he was putting away groceries. He did go pet her on the couch but didnt' notice anything weird. A few minutes later he calls me downstairs. Sadie had walked into the kitchen and was walking nose to the floor taking each step very careful and scared to death. We discovered she either was completely blind now or at least VERY cloudy vision. We called our vet who wasn't much help but suggested we make an appointment to take her to a optomologist. We called a friend who has worked at an animal hospital in the past and she told us the names of a couple of good optomolgists and said we should consider taking her down to Tufts Vet Emergency Clinic. We called them and they said to bring her right down.

3hrs and $800 later they've called in the specialists and done the first round of tests. They see glaucoma in both eyes. They said normal pressure in the eye is around 16 and she's testing around 46 (i think he said both eyes) The right eye has hemorraged and the retina has detached. In the left eye the retina is starting to detach. They are running blood test and checking for two infectious diseases she may have had her whole life and brought with her from Puerto Rico. The two diseases he mentioned are Leishmania Infantum and Ehrlichia Canis. We asked his opinion on what he thinks her chances of recovery are. He said she is blind in the right eye and they are going to try to save the vision in the left. We will know more about how she's responding to the eye treatment and the results of her tests in 2 days (Wednesday). He doesn't know anything more until we get the results of her blood work.

My questions: Anyone have experience with a blind dog? Anyone know anything about these diseases? Any specific things we should ask the vet? Anyone have disease experiences with Save-A-Sato dogs?

We love Sadie very much and hope we can improve her quality of life but we know that we may have to put her down if disease has gone too far. Want to see pictures of her?

[Traci]

First, I must say I am appalled at your primary vet for not taking your complaints seriously, and not seeing Sadie when you clearly outlined your concerns. I am assuming the specialists you are seeing now are from a NEW clinic?

Here is more info for you on Leishmania and Ehrlichia

To answer your questions, I'm afraid only your vet team can say for sure, depending on the extent of damage or how the organs have thus far been affected.....but if agressive treatment is initiated, she has a good chance of recovery. As for the blindness and/or loss of sight, (and depending on the need for meds, response to meds, etc)...again, only your vets can say, but if she recovers and loses her sight or that enucleation becomes necessary, many dogs can lead perfectly normal lives without sight, you only need to make adjustments in her environment to help compensate.

Try not to jump the gun just yet, discuss testing and the results and prognosis thoroughly with your vet team before making any rash decisions. They are the only ones who can tell you what to expect. Have faith and hang in there....

[KiltedFlower]

"Appalled" does not BEGIN to cover the feeling we have for our vet at the moment. My animals will NOT be going back to him.

Fortunately, Sadie is at Tufts Vet School in their Dog/Cat Clinic so we feel she is in the best hands possible. Their emergency clinicians were the only ones on staff last night but they did call in their eye specialist and she was looked at last night.

They called home a little while ago and said she was getting used to her surroundings and she did eat, drink, and sleep last night. They are waiting for the results of her blood tests and have started treatment for her eye and the diseases they think it might be. They were doing some chest x-rays this morning and will let as know as soon as they know ANYTHING. They did say that her kidney levels looked okay in the preliminary tests they did last night - which was one of the things we were worried about with the high levels of protein in her urine.

The vets and students at Tufts seem to be knowledgable and very accomodating. Now comes the search for a new regular vet for my cat who I was getting ready to take in for an ear problem....

[Traci]

I can't imagine what you've endured, my heart goes out to you, but I am releived to hear you will not be using your primary vet again....how utterly negligent of him.

Keep us updated as you know more, you have a wonderful vet team behind you...

[KiltedFlower]

Update:

We heard from the vets Tuesday afternoon that they had run a bunch of other tests and couldn't find anything else wrong with her and that every test the ran came back normal. They still don't have the bloodwork about the two diseases they think it might be back and they've sent out more bloodwork which may take up to a week to get back. So we don't really know anything about cause yet but......

Today they called to say that the other eye is gone so she is now completely blind and they wanted to take fluid from both eyes to relieve pressure and to look at the fluid.... we're very sad about this but we knew it was a probably what was going to happen. They didn't get back to us today about the first round of blood tests (they said Wednesday but... we'll wait to ask questions until tomorrow).

We just got back from visiting her. A very hard thing to do but we're really glad we went. They brought her out to us and took us to an exam room where we could be alone with her for as long as we wanted. She was pretty heavily sedated but she did know we were there and she perked up when my dad said her name and stuff. They had shaved off several splotches of fur and she had an IV tube in her leg. She looks so helpless and she kept almost falling asleep in my dads arms. The student who brought her out to us is one of the ones watching over her in the ward one level down from ICU (where she was when we left her Monday night). The student was wonderful and tried to answer any questions we had and she almost cried when she handed Sadie over to my dad and saw Sadie's tail start to wag a little. We didn't stay long -- too hard to see her that sedated -- and we left my dad's jacket with them so she can have something that smells like him in her cage.

They said she might be stable enough to come home tomorrow and we should hear something about the tests too. We miss her so much and I think my cat misses her too. We're starting to think how we have to change things around the house to make it blind-dog friendly but we haven't put any physical effort into that yet because we don't know what's going to happen.

[momPaws]

Don't have medical advice, but my thoughts are with you. Yes, bring her home and love her - it will all work out. I have read about other blind dogs on this board and they seem to do fine. I'm sure she will too with such a loving family. Good Luck.

[Cindy]

Hi! You have a beautiful dog! I don't have any experience with a newly blind dog. Mine had already been blind for several years when I got him. He will run up stairs, but not down. He feels very confident on his leash, but will wander around the yard happily without it, under constant supervision of course. He did wander down the street one day (who knew he could open a sliding screen door!?????) but it was obvious he was blind by the way he was inching his way down the street, so a neighbor took him in and found out where he belonged. I almost had a heart attack!

His previous owners had taught him some words. When we come to a curb, I say "step up" and he hops up onto the curb.. Or when we are leaving the sidewalk I'll say "step down" and you'd never know he couldn't see the curb! I am basically his "seeing eye person" When I see that he is moving too fast and about to run into something, I'll say "careful!" and he will immediately slow down or swerve. He loves to run like crazy in the yard, but I have to make sure to call to him if he runs too close to a tree or the birdfeeder post.

When he gets overly excited he will throw all caution to the wind and run into walls or furniture that he KNOWS is there but forgets in his excitement.

He is not very friendly with other dogs. I don't know if this is because of his blindness or because of his terrier nature (JRT). Walks and rides in the car are the highlights of his life so I try to take him as often as possible.

So, except for getting a little more attention than the average dog, he's just that--an average dog

[Guest]

Update:

She's home. We brought her home last night. She's bumping around the house a lot but she's figuring it out. (We just watched her, all by herself, walk from the kitchen where she had been eating a little to the family room and around the corner of the couch and then hop up on the couch -- we are impressed)

The doctors said she tested high positive for Ehrlichia canis and equine. They believe she got it from a tick either this past summer or fall. Her kidneys have been affected and they give her a 75% chance that they'll return to normal. She is on 4 different pills and 3 different eye drops and we've worked out a complicated chart on when we have to give her each of them. Pills: Doxycycline, Enalapril, Spironolactone, and Prednisone. Drops: TrusOpt, PredAcetate, and Atropine. She is also on a low-protein, prescription diet. They recommended (and gave us samples of) Hills LD and KD and Purina NF. We now have to find where to get these while we figure out which vet we want Sadie to have. We're going to do a bit more research this time. Since she came home last night she has piged out and eaten 2 1/2 cans of that food. They only gave us 6.

Tonight......... we noticed that her left eye (the one that first was affected and later hemmoraged) had turned bright red and was slowly getting more so. We called Tufts again and said "should we bring her in?" and they said "yup!" Two hours later.... she's okay. They think she either bumped her head or got to excited and her bloodpressure went up -- and her eye got a little more blood in it. They're not worried. They upped her bloodpressure med and they think she'll be just fine. They did run a quick blood test and said that her anemia was a little better but everything else was about the same but they expect that to get better with some TLC. Before we left we asked them to weigh her on their scale and she weighed 26.4 pounds.

Now it's almost time for her next round of drops -- off we go.....

[KiltedFlower]

oops... that was me... I thought I was logged in but I guess not

[jason]

Update:

She's home.

yay!

sounds like you have your hands full with pills and drops, thanks for the update.