Ok, so this a dog-related post. Why post here? Because I find that water people also seem to have dogs and cats, and the dog breeds tend towards the retriever types. I also know that Rick and Mary are fond of Goldens, so here's something to look out for.

I also find that some people take exception to other people that try to do for their pets, so if you're one of those, save your comments about dog owners and putting dogs down for some other thread. This is for info purposes.

There is an eye disease unique to Golden Retrievers called Anterior Uveitis. This seems to be a genetic disease, specifically a non-disease related inflammation of the eyes, and it causes a range of problems, the more serious being glaucoma and secondary cataracs. Left unchecked, the glaucoma will render the dog blind due to damage to the optic nerve. This whole thing tends to appear in Goldens when they are around 8 years old. We have also found that regular veterinarians, even though they are starting to perform the tonometry tests (tests for pressure in the eye to detect glaucoma), don't know how to interpret the results well, and are unaware of such diseases. The breeders are abuzz about this now, but the problem is that many litters will have been born by the time the condition appears in the breeding pairs.

So, one of many things veterinary we have learned through this holiday season is that if you have a golden retriever at or beyond 8 years of age, and you suspect anything about his eyes, get the dog checked immediately by a specialist, and mention this syndrome.

Our dog-buddy Austin got diagnosed by our regular vet as having some cataracs building up that we might want to get fixed when they get worse. When we checked at the specialist, we found out about the anterior uveitis, found out the poor guy was in pain from the pressure in his eyes, and found that he was irreparably blind in one eye with very little vision left in the other. When glaucoma is in the picture things happen fast. For Christmas, he got one eye removed and a laser procedure to fix the pressure in the other eye, and he has very little vision left. If we had known more about what to look for when the cataracs were first noticed, this could have been averted.

And, of course, get your own eyes checked as well!