Health & Medical

The vet caught it because I happened to mention the squint. My old dog, Cleo, had been holding one eye shut in the bright morning for a week, and I thought it was the sun. The clinic stained the eye and found a scratch on the cornea that had been open long enough to worry. A dry eye that a vet caught before the cornea burned is the kind of save you only get by showing up for the small signs.

Dry eye is not a lack of tears in the way people mean. It is the gland that makes the wet film slowing down, so the eye runs dry and the clear layer on the front, the cornea, has no slip and no wash. Without the film, dust sits, scratches form, and a scratch that is not caught turns to ulcer, and an ulcer that is not caught can reach the inside and cost the eye. Cleo's was early. The stain lit a thin line and the vet called it a warning, not a loss, and that word mattered.

The signs are easy to miss because they look like nothing. A dog who rubs the eye with a paw, holds it shut in light, has a dull film instead of a shine, or makes a little clear goo that is not the usual wet. Cleo did the squint and a faint goo I wiped without thinking. The shine was the clue I did not know to look for. A healthy eye is glossy. A dry one goes flat. I check the gloss now the way I check the food bowl.

Some dogs are built for it. Flat-faced breeds and a few lines run low tear production, and it shows up with age. Cleo is neither, which is why I missed it. The cause can be immune, a gland the body quietly attacks, and that kind needs daily drops for life, not a week of cream. The vet tested her tear rate with a strip of paper under the lid, a quick pinch she barely noticed, and the number told the story better than the look did.

The drops are the whole treatment

Dry eye is managed, not cured, when the gland is the problem. Cleo got artificial tears and a thicker gel at night, and a drop that wakes the gland in the morning. The routine is twice a day, every day, and the day I skip is the day the eye goes dull again. I set it beside her food so I cannot forget. The drops replace the film the body stopped making, and without them the cornea dries and the scratch returns. There is no finish line. There is the bottle.

An ulcer changes the plan. If the stain shows a hole, the vet adds antibiotic drops and may bandage the eye or cone the dog so she cannot rub it into a worse tear. Cleo's was a line, not a hole, so we watched it close in a week. A hole would have meant more, and the difference between the two is the week you wait before you call. The scratch heals. The ulcer can take the eye. The line between them is the phone call.

Watch the other eye too. Dry eye often comes to both, one after the other, and the second one I will catch at the first squint, not the first week. I check Cleo's good eye each morning now, because the body that slowed one gland tends to slow the other, and a dog with one good eye is a dog I would rather not have if I can keep two.

The squint was the sun, I thought. It was a dry eye a vet caught in time. Cleo kept both eyes because I mentioned the small thing instead of wiping it and moving on. The cornea is thin and the margin is narrow, but the save is ordinary: notice, call, drop, repeat. Most of eye health is that boring list, done without fail, before the burn.

Keep the drops where the eye can see them. Cleo's gel sits by her bowl and the morning drop sits by the lead, so the routine binds to things she already expects. The day I ran out and meant to buy more tomorrow was the day her eye went dull again, and the lesson stuck. A dry eye managed well stays quiet for years, and a dry eye skipped for a day speaks up the same week. The film is thin and the margin is narrow, but the bottle on the shelf is the whole defence, and the defence only works if it is open and used before the gloss goes flat.

Re-test the other eye on a schedule. Cleo's good eye gets a stain every few months now, because the body that slowed one gland tends to slow the other and the second one I will catch at the first dull, not the first week. The vet keeps the strips and the cost is a ten-minute visit that buys the sight of a dog who can still chase a ball in the sun. A dry eye is a quiet thief and the only guard is the check you keep, not the one you did once and forgot. The gloss is the signal and the clinic is the place that reads it true.