Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Last Thursday night, as I was closing up the barns around 10 p.m. and checking on all the horses, I noticed our blind horse Scout squinting with his left eye.  It was also tearing.  The sclera — the white part of the eye — was reddish, too.  Hmm.  Classic signs of a painful eye.  I called Alayne, who was over at Widget’s House putting the dogs up after letting them out once more before bedtime, to let her know we had some medicating to do.

I headed back to the house to get a pen-light and my favorite selection of eye ointments and drops.  When I returned to Beauty’s Barn, Alayne was already there and had a halter on Scout.  Now, this sweet old Appaloosa is just as gentle as they come, but he does NOT like us giving him oral medication or eye medication … so he tosses his head about in protest as soon as he thinks we’re about to do anything.  Scout is also able to keep his eyelids shut tight — I call the eyelid the strongest muscle in a horse! — to keep out prying fingers, which makes a head-tossing horse with a painful eye a "non-compliant patient."

After several attempts to a) hold head still and b) open eyelid, I succeeded in shining the pen-light on his eye … and it revealed what looked like a corneal ulcer developing on the surface.  Corneal ulcers can become major problems quickly — some become "melting" ulcers that literally eat right through the cornea.  I put the right kind of ointment in the eye (the wrong kind can exacerbate the ulcer), gave Scout some grain for his troubles, and closed up the barn. 

On Friday morning I hauled Scout in to Missoula so our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown, could examine the eye.  That’s where I took these photos.  In the first photo Bill is doing a corneal stain, which "illuminates" disruptions on the corneal surface.  Sure enough, my late night diagnosis was correct — Scout had a corneal ulcer.  In the second photo, Scout is showing Dr. Bill his head-tossing maneuver just because … well, just because.  (Notice flying lead rope!)  If you click on this photo for a larger image, you can see the flourescent stain on Scout’s eye and side of his face.

So at this point we’ll continue with the treatment we already had Scout on, and closely monitor the eye … because these ulcers can get away from you pretty quickly.

By Sunday evening, whenever Scout would hear me coming, he’d shut that eyelid and keep it that way!