I have always been an animal lover, I am the mom to a mini Aussie/Newfie mix, Lily and was ready to add another baby to my family. I went to look at blue heelers when I met my newest additions to my family.
When all of the puppies were shown to me, I was immediately drawn to her “special” one whom she was carrying in her arms. She informed us that he was seeing impaired. I knew he was mine from the start. With him only being 6 weeks old, I knew he was going to have a long hard road ahead of him and made a snap decision to also take one of his brothers (we named this one Blue) with us too. Later, we realized how smart of a decision that was becuase now Blue is Buddy’s seeing eye dog.
Buddy had many visit to the vet and ophthalmologist. He was diagnosed with severe corneal ulcers which stemmed either from his eyes being opened to early or staying shut to long. He also developed nystagmus (involuntary movement of the eye). We learned that he was born with some vision, but due to so much scar tissue in one of his eyes and with a deep infection in the other he only has peripheral. At his eyes worst, he was up to 5 different ointments/drops everyday.
After many more visits to the vet and lots of determination to get his eyes health, I got the news I feared the worst. One of Buddy’s eyes was going to have to be removed. I cried many tears that day for my baby, but I didn’t have too long to cry because later that week, my 10 week old Buddy’s eye ruptured and had to be removed. I was heartbroken.
I realized now though that my babies life had changed. He is so much happier without it and at that moment I realized how much his quality of life had suffered.
When Buddy was around 5 months, we noticed that his eye had become bulging, so we took him to the vet. We found out that he had developed glaucoma and lost all the vision he had in his remaining eye. My vet informed me that Buddy was eventually going to have to lose his other eye.
Buddy is now 9 months old and still has his eye, unfortunately it is time for him to lose it and I am at a lose.
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