Up until late April, I would just let the dogs out to run and potty (the yard is fully fenced). Well, since the arrival of the Goat Boys, Jake and Sassy have had to be on leash when they go outside. If they aren’t, they get all stupid and run the fence line, barking at the Goat Boys and generally being obnoxious. One night I happened to notice that Jake was acting oddly – staring off towards the woods or the road, acting suspicious, spooking at random things. This went on for a few evenings and I decided I needed to get him to a vet to get his eyes checked. Sure, it was possible that something had happened one night and he’d lost his confidence, but he’s such a Mama’s boy that I really didn’t think he wouldn’t have let me know if something had scared or hurt him that badly. So, to the vet.
Except Sassy developed an ear infection, so she took his appointment. I made another. Kodiak got sick and took that appointment. Then a couple of business trips popped up. By that point, the days were long enough that it was no longer an issue. We simply weren’t going outside after dark. And so the summer passed.
A couple of weeks ago, Kodiak had a few seizures. It was the middle of the night, but we were all up, so I figured I’d take Jake out for a quick potty run. Yeah, he wasn’t happy about that. Completely freaked, in fact. The next morning, I scheduled an appointment with the vet and I was determined he’d keep it, no matter what happened with anyone else.
Doc checked his eyes and noticed that neither pupil was constricting as much as they should with the pinpoint light. He turned off the light in the exam room to check Jake’s reaction. Even with me sitting right next to him, Jake became agitated almost instantly and practically belly-crawled to the door and the crack of light that was coming in underneath. Before we left, I made an appointment with an ophthalmologist. That evening, I tested the vet’s idea that there might be some leash reactivity involved. Nope, there wasn’t. I had to coax Jake to leave the circle of light on the porch, and when we reached a certain point, he simply refused to go any farther. Okay, good to know.
Today was the ophthalmology visit. Jake has retinal degeneration. He’s going to lose his vision and there’s no way to stop it. There’s a horribly expensive supplement that might help slow it down, but no guarantee. The good news is that it’s not painful. As long as he’s not hurting, we’ll get through this. He’s going to have plenty of time to get used to it, so it shouldn’t be a major stressor for him. In the grand scheme of things, this is not bad. Seizures are bad. Slowly losing vision, not so much. Besides, Sassy’s already working for Kodiak as a seizure-alert dog. No reason why she can’t train to be Jake’s seeing eye dog, too.