I drove Mitch the blind Husky to Helena today to see our vet, Dr. Brenda Culver, for an eye exam. I had suspected, based on the appearance of his eyes, that he had progressive retinal atrophy, or PRA. Brenda and I both like making educated guesses prior to the exam, simply based on visual appearance, and then letting her diagnostic tools tell us how accurate we are.
In the photo above, Brenda is using her slit lamp to look into his eye. Vet tech Jayme J. is holding Mitch still for the exam. The slit lamp is an ophthalmic microscope, so you can see virtually everything going on inside the eye. After just a few seconds, Brenda turned to me and said, "He’s got the most advanced case of PRA I think I’ve ever seen." The retinas were as thin as they could possibly be.
In this photo, Brenda is now using a magnifying lens for a different view of his retina:
Next came the intraocular pressure, or IOP, readings with the Tono-Pen, which would indicate whether he has any incipient glaucoma developing. But his pressures were perfectly normal in both eyes:
So the result is that we’ve confirmed he has PRA and there isn’t, unfortunately, anything we can do to restore vision. But he is one happy boy, as you can see in this next photo that I took of Mitch in the truck just before we left the ranch this morning … he was pawing at me, trying to get me to put the camera down and love him up instead:
So I left Mitch at the clinic to be neutered, and then drove north out of Helena towards Great Falls. I was headed to the airport there to meet a little blind guy we were flying in from Mississippi today … a 4-month old Lab puppy named Creighton. He arrived safe and sound, but I’m going to save him for my Sunday night blog post!
Well, okay then … before I get too much grief, here’s a hint of what this boy looks like (and jeez, look at those eyes):
Stay tuned for Creighton’s story and more photos!
Finally, here’s what our county road looked like when Creighton and I were driving home this afternoon … the ranch is out there somewhere, about a mile away:
Mississippi it ain’t.
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