I think Snowie is either going deaf or already deaf. It seems so sudden, but perhaps not.
His ears have always been bad, always infections. In the last few months, the amount of product that has gone into his ears could fill a pharmacy.
We have noticed he hasn’t woken up when we come home. We thought he was sleeping deeply. But now I think he just doesn’t hear the house alarm sounding or the door opening. I’ve tried testing him. I make him sit behind the kitchen counter and then hide treats. Then I call “Find it”. Sometimes he just sits there. Not always, so it’s confusing.
Yesterday we took him to the opthalmologist vet to check his left eye. I think something/dust blew in and he scratched it a couple of weeks ago, he was rubbing it a lot. I rinsed it with saline but it still looked not quite right.
She said he has an ulcer on his cornea and the new cells aren’t adhering. He had this before in about 2017. She mentioned then that it would likely recur.
The treatment is violent! She put in anaesthetic drops and then used a diamond bur (like a dremel!) to whisk off the dead cells. Then she used an earbud to completely rub off the non-sticking cells from his eye. We (my husband and I!) were the assistants, holding Snowie’s head still. She did say she could get an assistant in (it’s an animal hospital), but we preferred it this way. Snowie was very compliant, and I think he’s less stressed with us holding him than a stranger. Also, this vet is amazingly competent and confident, and Snowie seems to go into trance when she’s working on him. And wags his tail with all of this going on!
His eye now looks horrific. He doesn’t want to open it. She said it would be painful but would heal quickly. The days must pass quickly now because I can’t handle the pain he must be in. We gave him pain meds last night. At first the vet said no pain meds, they would slow the healing process. But we insisted. And I’m pleased we did because he was groaning last night and rubbing his face until the pain meds kicked in.
We have to put drops in 6x a day. To act as a barrier. She tried to put in a contact lens, but he kept rubbing it out. Putting in the drops is very difficult!
As for his ears, she took swabs and found a bacterial infection in one ear and yeast in the other. So he has different treatments for each ear with different applicators. She doesn’t want to risk cross infection between the ears.
She will check them again when we go back in 10 days. She said if they’re still full of gunk, she’ll have to sedate him and clean them thoroughly. She did this already last year in August.
I’m hoping that at least the yeasty ear can still hear, it’s always been the better ear in terms of infections. His brother is deaf. So it might well be in the genes. But I am so sad and don’t want it to be this way. I really hope they’re blocked at the moment and that his hearing will come back.
Here he is after his ordeal at the vet, exhausted. He fell asleep before he could even lie properly on his bed. The socks are to stop him chewing his feet (allergies). His feet have improved so much. Now the eye and ears.
His ears have always been bad, always infections. In the last few months, the amount of product that has gone into his ears could fill a pharmacy.
We have noticed he hasn’t woken up when we come home. We thought he was sleeping deeply. But now I think he just doesn’t hear the house alarm sounding or the door opening. I’ve tried testing him. I make him sit behind the kitchen counter and then hide treats. Then I call “Find it”. Sometimes he just sits there. Not always, so it’s confusing.
Yesterday we took him to the opthalmologist vet to check his left eye. I think something/dust blew in and he scratched it a couple of weeks ago, he was rubbing it a lot. I rinsed it with saline but it still looked not quite right.
She said he has an ulcer on his cornea and the new cells aren’t adhering. He had this before in about 2017. She mentioned then that it would likely recur.
The treatment is violent! She put in anaesthetic drops and then used a diamond bur (like a dremel!) to whisk off the dead cells. Then she used an earbud to completely rub off the non-sticking cells from his eye. We (my husband and I!) were the assistants, holding Snowie’s head still. She did say she could get an assistant in (it’s an animal hospital), but we preferred it this way. Snowie was very compliant, and I think he’s less stressed with us holding him than a stranger. Also, this vet is amazingly competent and confident, and Snowie seems to go into trance when she’s working on him. And wags his tail with all of this going on!
His eye now looks horrific. He doesn’t want to open it. She said it would be painful but would heal quickly. The days must pass quickly now because I can’t handle the pain he must be in. We gave him pain meds last night. At first the vet said no pain meds, they would slow the healing process. But we insisted. And I’m pleased we did because he was groaning last night and rubbing his face until the pain meds kicked in.
We have to put drops in 6x a day. To act as a barrier. She tried to put in a contact lens, but he kept rubbing it out. Putting in the drops is very difficult!
As for his ears, she took swabs and found a bacterial infection in one ear and yeast in the other. So he has different treatments for each ear with different applicators. She doesn’t want to risk cross infection between the ears.
She will check them again when we go back in 10 days. She said if they’re still full of gunk, she’ll have to sedate him and clean them thoroughly. She did this already last year in August.
I’m hoping that at least the yeasty ear can still hear, it’s always been the better ear in terms of infections. His brother is deaf. So it might well be in the genes. But I am so sad and don’t want it to be this way. I really hope they’re blocked at the moment and that his hearing will come back.
Here he is after his ordeal at the vet, exhausted. He fell asleep before he could even lie properly on his bed. The socks are to stop him chewing his feet (allergies). His feet have improved so much. Now the eye and ears.
