# Cherry eye



## Lilly's mom (Aug 10, 2007)

What is cherry eye?


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## Laurief (Nov 7, 2006)

It is a problem that is common in smaller breed dogs, more in dogs that have bulging eyes. If you look it up online, you can see a picture of it, and I believe there is a tread related to his somewhere. Lexi had a cherry eye, red bulge in the corner of her eye, and had it corrected surgically. She is great now!! The problem with it is that the vets and vet opthemologist will not guarantee their surgery and often times it pops again. If you catch it early and have it corrected I read that a reoccurance is less likely. Do you think that Lily has one? 
Laurie


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## Lilly's mom (Aug 10, 2007)

Laurief said:


> It is a problem that is common in smaller breed dogs, more in dogs that have bulging eyes. If you look it up online, you can see a picture of it, and I believe there is a tread related to his somewhere. Lexi had a cherry eye, red bulge in the corner of her eye, and had it corrected surgically. She is great now!! The problem with it is that the vets and vet opthemologist will not guarantee their surgery and often times it pops again. If you catch it early and have it corrected I read that a reoccurance is less likely. Do you think that Lily has one?
> Laurie


No. I read about it in the insurance thread and hadn't heard of it before. Thanks for the info.


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## Laurief (Nov 7, 2006)

No problem happy to help!! I am glad it is not something you are experiencing!
Laurie


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## good buddy (Feb 20, 2007)

I'm glad to hear your not having a problem either!



Thumperlove said:


> By the way, I hope Rufus is doing alright
> 
> Kara


Thanks Kara! Rufus is doing great, and the surgery results are fabulous! You can't even tell there was ever anything wrong. eace:


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## irnfit (Nov 21, 2006)

So glad to hear Rufus is 100% again. He is such a doll face.


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## good buddy (Feb 20, 2007)

irnfit said:


> So glad to hear Rufus is 100% again. He is such a doll face.


Thanks Michelle! I'm glad too! eace:


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## Lilly's mom (Aug 10, 2007)

Did Rufus have cherry eye?


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## good buddy (Feb 20, 2007)

Lilly's mom said:


> Did Rufus have cherry eye?


Yes, here's a link to the thread.. http://havaneseforum.com/showthread.php?t=1200&page=2&highlight=rufus+cherry scroll down on page two to see the pic. He had surgery at the same time as Cathy's girl Dani and he's looking so good now! You'd never know to look at him he ever had a problem. :whoo:


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## Doggie Nut (Oct 20, 2006)

Glad to know you have found answers to your questions here on this great forum!!


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## Laurief (Nov 7, 2006)

Christy - isnt is amazing how good they look. It has been 1 1/2 years since Lexi's surgery and you would never know!! I hope Rufus is as successful as lexi.
Laurie


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## HavaBaloo (Mar 24, 2009)

Hi, My Baloo has Cherry Eye too. We goto the Vets on April 14th to discuss surgery and neutering at the same time. I was relieved to see this post and another one in this category. My breeder and vet both said it is easily corrected, so I feel a little better now.

The only thing that makes me nervous is that we are trying to raise Baloo "all natural" meaning we are raw feeding, and he is not vaccinated and I want to keep it that way. So I many need to find another vet if she isn't supportive.

Does anyone know the recovery time for this surgery?

Thanks!


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## PepperToast (Oct 27, 2008)

Hey Angie,

I LOVE it that you are feeding raw to your pup. I think it's the best way to feed for most every dog. 

I just wanted to make one little comment about vaccinations... Here in B.C. the B.C. Naturopathic Association supports vaccinations for children. There was recently an article in my local paper about this issue and the misconception that Naturopathic doctors do not believe in immunizations. Now I know we are talking about doggies here and that is different. I only give you this as information. I don't know why you have chosen not to vaccinate and I absolutely do not judge you for not doing it!

Meeka


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## Laurief (Nov 7, 2006)

I am so sure that even with a cherry eye - I am sure that Baloo is beautiful!
Lexi had the surgery, done by my vet, about 2 years ago, and she is doing wonderfully. There is never a guarantee with this situation, and many doctors say it can happen again, after correction. But we have been very very lucky. Usually it will re-occur often in "bulging eye" type dogs - so hopefully Baloo will be done after one surgery.

It took her about 2 weeks to fully heal, and about a month of drops in the eyes. She needed to wear the cone for two weeks so that she would not scratch the eye. 
Please keep me up to date with Baloo's cherry eye situation - I will be thinking about him!! 
I cannot comment on the raw as I do not feed that - sorry.


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## kimoh (Jul 5, 2007)

Sadly we are an unsuccessful tale of cherry eye surgery. Dilly had cherry eye in both eyes. We did corrective surgery and after about 4-6 weeks they had both come back. We re did the surgery again back in January and in less than a week one had come back. So far the other one is holding, but am not quite sure what to do now. It does not seem worth it to try again. My vet will remove it at no charge, but I worry about possible dry eye issues(although he has never had a problem with this). Of course it is just cosmetic so we can live with it too, but I really do hate how it looks.

Good luck to you and Baloo!


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## HavaBaloo (Mar 24, 2009)

Thanks for all your comments and I totally know where you are coming from regarding the vaccinations, I was a believer in vaccinations just 3 weeks ago. I have only had Baloo for 1 week, and he came to me raw fed and with no vaccinations. I will be getting his rabies shot for sure, because I can't get a dog tag without it.

I have done alot of research, and I will work with my vet, and after hearing our situation I will work out a plan, but I am not going to over vaccinate Baloo that is for sure.

I do want to note that I and several other Havanese breeders do not recommend the Canine Leptospirosis vaccination. The reason is that this breed seems to sometimes have a bad reaction to this vaccination. There have been reports that it has been fatal to some Havanese. There seems to be no "rhyme or reason" to the effects on Havanese.

I don't want to create a debate on the situation, but here is some articles and research I have found:

=================================
Before vaccinating your pet, consider the risk.

If your dog is mostly indoor only and will not be exposed to unvaccinated
animals, the risk of infection is low.

The decision about vaccinations is very individual and should be guided by
your own research on the subject before you go to the veterinarian.

http://www.whale.to/vaccine/driscoll1.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~pawsreflect/vaccinosis.html

I hope posting this information is okay, if not, please delete my post. Thanks!


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## Sheri (Oct 11, 2008)

There are lots of us on here that avoid the Lepto shot. There are also more threads that you can find on the Forum about vaccinating or not that I'm sure you will find interesting.

I think it is safe to say that most of the Hav people on the list favor the least amount of vaccinations possible, while doing the best to keep them safe at the same time.


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## Havtahava (Aug 20, 2006)

Angie, even though this is off topic, you might want to consider following the vaccine protocol of Jean Dodds DVM. She is highly regarded as a canine (and feline) vaccine researcher and has a minimal vaccine protocol. If you do a search on this forum for the word "protocol", you'll find it listed here in several places. I attended a seminar with her just two months ago and it hasn't changed. She is also the founder of the Rabies Challenge Fund and is working on getting the Rabies vaccine to be adminstered even less often than required now, with scientific basis.


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## hyindc (Apr 21, 2008)

I am so sorry to hear that Baloo has cherry eye. Our Paco developed it in December, when he was 11 months old. In our case, it would slip in and out by itself. Our vet referred us to a vet ophthalmologist to perform the surgery. However, he wanted to wait until the gland stayed out before doing it. We knew that day would come, and it did three weeks ago. So, two weeks ago tomorrow, Paco had his surgery. As others have mentioned, the surgery was comparatively easy, and Paco was home that evening. However, he had to wear a cone, which made him very depressed and lethargic. The vet said he needed to wear the cone for a minimum of 4 days, and preferably for 2 weeks. We compromised and took it off after one week. Within hours of taking it off, he was his old self. We have kept a careful eye on him, to make sure he did not scratch it. But apparently after a week, he had no particular sensitivity to it, and left it alone. He has been on prescription drugs - a steroid to control inflammation and an antibiotic to avoid infection. We also have had to apply ointment to his eye three times a day. The ointment is a topical antibiotic enhanced by a steroid. Tomorrow we go back to the ophthalmologist for a post-op follow-up. So far so good, so we are hoping for a favorable report and full "discharge" from his care tomorrow. 

Our regular vet who made the referral to the ophthalmologist told us that Board certified vet opthalmologists have a much higher success rate (i.e., no recurrence) than vets who do the surgery less often. There are only 350 of them in the country. We were lucky that there was one about an hour drive from us.

I suggest you ask your vet how he/she would estimate his/her success rate. Our vet ophthalmologist estimated his at 80-85% on first-time surgery, and 99% on a redo. However, he rated our chances of success for the first time operation at 90+% because Paco's swelling was relatively small and was going in and out on its own. Time will tell. I think tomorrow he will say Paco can go off the meds (and maybe the ointment), and then we will hope for the best. The worst part of it for us and Paco was the cone. Our doctor actually gave us a dog sedative to keep him calm if the cone caused him anxiety. However, we never gave it to him, because he didn't get anxious, just depressed. Good luck!!!!!!!!!! 

P.S., for those of you who have not seen "cherry eye," and may be wondering what it looks like, here is a picture of Paco with his -


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## Sheri (Oct 11, 2008)

Thanks for the photo, Harvey, I wondered what it would look like.


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## HavaneseSoon (Nov 4, 2008)

Years ago when I had my Cocker Spaniel, she got a cherry eye. It was nasty looking! The Vet did surgery on it and it was gone.


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## good buddy (Feb 20, 2007)

HavaBaloo said:


> Hi, My Baloo has Cherry Eye too. Does anyone know the recovery time for this surgery?


I vaccinate, but use the minimum protocol as suggested by Dr. Dodds, so I have no information for you regarding no vaccinations. I would suggest you read the info she has on her site though. It's another perspective for you. 
http://www.doglogic.com/vaccination.htm

My Rufus had cherry eye and we had a successful surgery. I couldn't be happier! It was scary at the time to see my little pup with his eye lookig funky, but you would never know he had a problem now. I posted a thread on it at the time here http://havaneseforum.com/showthread.php?t=1200&highlight=Rufus+cherry If you look a couple pages in you can see how it looked before and then just a couple pages before the end you can see how he looked with it fixed! He is the light colored boy in my avatar. 



Laurief said:


> Christy - isnt is amazing how good they look. It has been 1 1/2 years since Lexi's surgery and you would never know!! I hope Rufus is as successful as lexi.
> Laurie


I'm glad Lexi has had no problems. No problems here either!! :whoo:

Kimoh, I am so sorry to hear your Dilly had the cherry eye pop up again! Was it your regular vet who did the surgery? If so, I would consider consulting with a vet ophthalmologist. Rufus' surgery ws done by a specialist and although it was more costly, she had much more experience than my vet at correcting the problem. She also told me it was of the utmost importance that Rufus have the cone on the whole time, not scratch at he eye and no running-jumping or rough play because the majority of surgeries that fail do so fairly soon after the surgery.



hyindc said:


> I am so sorry to hear that Baloo has cherry eye. Our Paco developed it in December, when he was 11 months old..... Tomorrow we go back to the ophthalmologist for a post-op follow-up. So far so good, so we are hoping for a favorable report and full "discharge" from his care tomorrow.
> 
> P.S., for those of you who have not seen "cherry eye," and may be wondering what it looks like, here is a picture of Paco with his -


I hope Paco got a clean bill of health when you did the re-check!


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## hyindc (Apr 21, 2008)

Paco was pronounced "cured" of his cherry eye last Friday. As for recuperation time, the day of surgery when we brought him home, he was quite out of it, much as dogs are after neutering. The vet had him on two oral meds for 2 weeks, eye ointment 3 times a day for 2 weeks, and an E-collar (i.e., plastic cone on his head) for one week. The vet recommended the cone for two weeks, but said that Paco's cherry eye swelling was small enough so if the cone was difficult for him we could remove it after one. Paco is high energy and loves to run and play with his brother Luke, so the cone quickly became a major nuisance to him. He literally would lie in the corner and mope, and we even had to coax him to his bowl to eat. I thought his weird mood was due to the collar. Sure enough, within 3 hours of removing the collar after the first week, he was his old self, and we never looked back. It is such a pleasure for us to look at his two well eyes now!!!!!!!!!!


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## good buddy (Feb 20, 2007)

hyindc said:


> Paco was pronounced "cured" of his cherry eye last Friday...It is such a pleasure for us to look at his two well eyes now!!!!!!!!!!


:whoo: :whoo: :whoo: Yes, it IS so much nicer to see those eyes looking beautiful as they were meant to be. :biggrin1: Congratulations!


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