Today I want to talk about two pathologies that can hit the eyes of our four legged friends. I have noticed that when, while visiting a brood, I have seen that one of the puppies had a very irritated eye that he kept always closed. The small eye watered so much that it made the fur wet! Therefore the puppy kept on scraping his eye with the small paw and on all the objects nearby.

The pathology that hits this puppy is the ECTROPION, a deformity of the eyelid which induces a continuous ex position outside the bottom eyelid by causing inflammation. This is also cause of a continuous exposition to bacteria, infectious agents and irritating material and it can lead to serious and irreversible eye compromise if you don’t intervene soon.

The pathology appears in puppies of predisposed races, particularly the ones with “ drop” skin (Mastiff, Basset Hound, Cocker Spaniel, Saint Bernardo, but it can appear on Labrador too).
The ectropion can also appear on adult dogs for neurologic causes on the face, but with the arrival of the old age too, due to the increasing of the skin laxity.

The pharmacological therapy can be a relief, even if only surgery can solve the problem definitively.
The surgeon eye veterinary will take off the excess portion of the eyelid, by building a proper eyelid fissure again.

In some cases, due to too many surgeries, it may occur the ENTROPION, that is the inversion towards the inside of the eyelid fissure.
When it appears, the eye of the infected dog will be always inflamed for the contact of the eyelashes on the cornea; you have to pay a lot of attention because the animal will keep on scraping because of the complaint and the pain, by causing the appearance of corneal ulcers.

The infectious and irritating agents can also be on the paws of the animals or on the objects the dog leans, by trying to make the pain lighter. Surgery is the solution to this serious problem.
Ectropion and entropion can appear in the cat too, even in a much lower number.