# Eye Removal?



## CorgiPaws (Mar 31, 2009)

So, some of you are familiar with my story regarding the cocker spaniel, formerly known as Taco, and my adoption process with him. Well, Taco is mine now, and his new name is Murphy. (Murphy's Law... I found it fitting) 

Murph has had limited tear production in his eyes forever, and is completely blind. (which doesn't stop him from playing fetch in a room he can hear the ball bounce!) He gets along just fine, and is probably the single most happy dog I've ever met. BUT. His right eye is shrinking pretty bad in the socket and needs to be taken out. 
He might go in this Thursday, I'm still figuring out details. I've been talking to the clinic today, and I'm a little weary on recovery time. He's old. 10ish, but completely healthy. The receptionist said there's not much recovery time at all and he'll be good to go after about 4 days. Is it really that fast? 
He's been blind for a long time so I don't think he'll even know it's gone, not concerned about that. 

Has anyone gone through this before? anyone at all? The whole thing is just a bit overwhelming. Aside from typical spay/ neuter, I haven't sent pets in for surgery before.


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## harrkim120 (Feb 2, 2010)

Never been through it...known people that have, but I never asked details. lol

How did you finally end up with Murphy Taco anyway? :tongue:


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

I had a Samoyed who had her eye removed at about 10 years old due to glaucoma. She actually had it done at by a veterinary ophthalmologist and had an artificial eye put in for a replacement so she would look normal. 

I took her home that night (because I was a vet tech). She was very uncomfortable the first night but by the next day she was fine. I really think it was easier then a spay (and this was before they gave pain medications to the dogs after surgery). She got along terrifically as a blind dog and could even walk in the woods without bumping into trees. 

Good luck......Chelsy needs to have the same surgery but at age 14 I'm not going to put her thru it. We are just heavily medicating her eye right now.


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## werecatrising (Oct 15, 2010)

I had to have a kitten's eye removed. I have seen several animals at the hospital have it done. Most of them are older- one was 16. I have to say, it is nowhere near as bad as you'd expect. They seem to be fine by the next day.


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## cprcheetah (Jul 14, 2010)

The eye will bleed quite a bit (mostly within the first 24 hours). I've had the surgery done on one of our office cats, when she was about 5 months old, she had herpes and her eye ruptured. Her depth perception was off for a bit, but she adjusted and now you can't even tell. We are going to be doing the surgery on a 13 year old cocker spaniel who already lost the other eye to glaucoma, they just haven't set the day yet. They usually recover pretty easily from it, although being a little older it might take her a few days to get back on her feet.


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## _Trish (Jan 31, 2011)

I would not recommend having the artificial eye put in -- I know someone who had that done and their poor little old dog's body rejected the eye, so she had to have a second surgery to remove it, which was almost like removing her eye all over again, it really prolonged her recovery time and caused a lot of complications.

I know of quite a few people that have had the eye enucleation surgery done on their dog. One person even had it done on a 12 year old Pug, and he did just fine. This type of surgery is most commonly seen in older pets, I think, at least that is what I have noticed.


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## catahoulamom (Sep 23, 2010)

My rottie/chowchow mix had to have her eye removed at 16 last November (due to cancer metastasizing in the eye). I did not notice much discomfort due to the surgery, we brought her home the same night (I did not want her unsupervised in the clinic overnight). However after the surgery, the cancer growth sped up and spread all over, and we had to euthanize her a couple of weeks later (wow, I can't believe I just typed that, it still doesn't feel real to me that she is gone)... so we never even had the chance to get her stitches removed. 

Anyways (sorry for getting off topic), for 10 year old in good health, I would proceed with having the eye(s) removed. We had no issues with her eye healing, it was very clean and easy.


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## Khan (Jan 17, 2010)

A friend of mine has a Boston Terrier (6 yrs old) who was playing last year in the yard. We think he must have run into a branch or something because the next thing we say was him running around with his eye hanging out of the socket. After a couple weeks his body rejected the reattached eye ball. They opted to just have the socket sewed shut. Now it just looks like Oliver is :wink: at you! Anyway, within a few days he was back to his old self. He actually perked up more once it was removed then during the 2 weeks of trying to save the eye!


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