Dogs and eye drops

scarepanda

Has anyone any tips on giving a dog eye drops?

Husky mix with conjunctivitis, will not let us near his eyes. The struggle is heartbreaking and I'm afraid he'll injure himself fighting us.

muddypaws

Probably not particularly helpful immediately, but if the drops aren't going in anyway, worth starting.

Have the bottle out, treat the dog, don't put it near his eyes, just get him used to the bottle, and start seeing it as a good thing - bottle comes out, something nice happens. You can also stroke around the eyes, again, reward, if he doesn't like it, start further away, and gradually work your way nearer to the eyes. You then progress, slowly, and that is important, that it is slow, the dog has to set the pace, when he's comfortable with one part, you move on to the next. The bottle then gets opened, then gets close to the dog, you could also maybe put the bottle upside down with the lid on, as if you're going to put drops in, but nothing comes out, just some sausage or ham goes in the mouth instead.

For now, if there are two of you, I think its probably just a matter of one calmly holding him down and the other putting the drops in. If you have the dog in a corner, it tends to be easier.

scarepanda

Cheers! I'm definitely going to future proof both dogs by getting them used to the drops bottle around their eyes using the method you've mentioned.

He had conjunctivitis a few weeks ago and that time it started off easy to give them to him, but he's a smart little ****er! A mere hint of us having the bottle and he runs and if he's not 100% sure he'll sniff our hand from a distance to confirm!

This morning we cornered him with a muzzle on and he struggled real hard. We suspect he has an injured knee as well so I don't want him struggling to much incase he does himself more harm.

Doctors room ghost

Hold bottle between your thumb and index finger with cap off ready for administration.get the dog sitting in front of you and hold its head with your other hand.you then have to rest the part of your hand with the bottle in you would use for a karate chop on the dogs forehead and squeeze in the drops. The hand with the bottle should always be resting on the dogs forehead and they won’t see it coming

Bells21

As muddypaws has said, making the dog realise that good things happen when the bottle is near is the best way forward for the future. I also like to teach a chin target i.e. the dog voluntary placing and keeping it's chin in your hand. Takes a bit of work but comes in handy for plenty of things. Start by luring the dogs chin into your hand using a tasty treat. Plenty of reps of this. Working towards when you present your hand the dog putting it's chin in it and then working towards duration i.e. the dog doesn't get the treat straight away when he offers the behaviour but after 5 seconds, 10seconds and so on. I know it's not helpful at the moment but may come in handy in the future.

scarepanda

Thanks everyone!

That's a really good suggestion bells21! We accidentally thought the older dog 'heads down' and it's a great thing! We've never had any eye issues before with any dogs we/iv had, even as a child, so it's not something I thought of desensitizing them for. And of course it would be the stubborn one that is having the issues!

Bells21

I don't think anyone really thinks of these things until they're needed, well that's how I am anyway. Hopefully your dog is feeling better soon.

scarepanda

Aw hopefully he will be. The vet thinks it could be an autoimmune issue though, so I'm not sure if it will be an ongoing thing or just flare ups. He's always had a sensitive stomach and has been on prescription food since he was a few months old. He's on steroids for his eye as well coz he had an infection in the skin around his eye. Once he's finished the steroids he's going for a hip and knee x-ray and starting on pain meds for his knee/hip/whatever is bothering him in his rear end area. The poor boy is having a rough time of it the last few days.

Thanks for your help though!

scarepanda

Just thought I'd update the thread.

The vet did a series of hip, knee and back x-rays on the pup. They all came back clear thankfully. There's a very slight concern on one of them for a knee, although it's not significant. The concern was mainly because the pup is/was also sensitive to touch on that same knee. But he's been in great form ever since.

While the pup was under for the x-rays I got the vet to have a good look at his eyes coz they were still getting irritated, and his conclusion was that the pup is probably suffering from allergies as his eye and the area around it looked perfect. So he gave me a prescription for antihistamines to give when the eye gets irritated. We've only had to give him a dose once since when he was itching it, but it hadn't visually gotten very bad so I'm not 100% how well it worked.

Now I need to start working on desensitising both dogs to us being near their eyes.

Thanks for all the advice!