I've just come back after leaving my nearly 3 yr old dog Jack for an hour and his left eye in particular looks sunken and half closed, the lower eyelid is falling away and the eye looks sore--the right is nowhere near as bad but he definitely has had some sort of accident--hard to know what because he was in a confined space, no access to anything that could obviously cause a problem. I can't see anything in his eye.

I have rushed him straight to the vet, and have had to take an appointment for 4.45 today--but in the meantime I am so worried about him. He's eating and drinking, but a bit subdued. Can anyone advise?

thanks for any help at all!

I had something similar when Buster was about 5 months old.
He had just woken from a morning snooze and his eyes looked red & sore, one lower eyelid was drooping so much so that you could hardly see he had an eyeball in there. He was aslo acting dopey (more so than normal LOL) and appeared to stuggling to walk as if he was drunk.

I immediately phoned the vet to tell them I'd be bringing him in as an emergency. While I was waiting for a lift to the vets he also started to salivate (way beyond his normal slobber).

I thought he was going to die!

At first the vets thought it was poisoning His eyes were checked then & there for signs of problems as his eyes seemed to be too painfull for him to open., nothing could be found but due to his very aggitated state, they kept him in to run some tests and examine his eyes more.

I got a call form them a couple of hours later to say he was back to normal apart form a slightly sore looking eye and that they could not find any cause and could only assume he had a bad reaction from an insect bite/sting.

It took a couple of days for the 'soreness' look of his eyes to go.
I tore my livingroom apart (where Buster sleeps) looking for any possible insect-like culprit but found nothing.

About a week later it happened agian, but without all the 'dunken' type symptoms, it was just his eyes effected, so I didn't take him back to the vet just monitered him. Sure enough, within a couple of hours his eyes looked better and, fingers crossed' it's never happened agian :) (he's 3 & half years old now)

You've done the right thing going to the vets.
I hope your boy is fine and please let us know how he is.

thanks for asking, mastifflover, we've just come back a little while ago. I'd stopped at the vet's on my way home this afternoon and took Jack in, really so someone else could confirm what I was seeing, and hoping they'd see him immediately.

Fifteen minutes earlier he was having difficulty facing the light, could barely see one eye and the conjunctiva looked red and sore. The eyelid almost formed a pocket, like a very elderly Basset's--I was afraid he'd had a stroke!!!! He wasn't as bad as your boy sounds, but I was still really frightened for him.

At the vet's the receptionist agreed it was looking 'off', and by the time we went back 2 hours later it was much better but the eye was slightly slightly closed and there was still a degree of ectropion.

The vet dropped dye in to check the cornea and looked for any foreign body in the eye--no sign of anything, thank goodness.

I am completely mystified how he's done this, but we have eye drops now and have been told it should clear up by itself.

I was never like this with my children and lord knows we had some doozies to deal with :)

Thanks for the up-date :)

> The eyelid almost formed a pocket, like a very elderly Basset's

Sounds like Busters was and inside the eyelid looked all sore and irritated.

> The vet dropped dye in to check the cornea and looked for any foreign body in the eye--no sign of anything, thank goodness.

Ahh that good news then :)

> I am completely mystified how he's done this

When Buster got like this, he had been curled up asleep!

> I was never like this with my children and lord knows we had some doozies to deal with

It just seems sooooo much worse with the dogs doesn't it! I think it's becasue they can't tell you how bad they feel, so we just assume the worst and end up in a tizz!!

Hope your boys eyes are back to normal soon and that he doesn't give you anohter nearvous break-down :)

Poor Jack!

A similar thing happened to Dexter once (on a Sunday... typical).  Luckily my friend (a vet) had a look at it and said it wasn't an emergency whatever it was.  He was acting totally normal though, just had a funny eye.  I put cold wet teabags on it periodically and it was almost back to normal the following day.  Never found out what happened though. 

I hope Jack continues to improve x

thanks CVL and mastifflover, poor baby Jack is loving the extra attention :) he is a real mother's pet at the best of times. The eye looks almost back to normal--thank goodness, he had me really worried there.

Teabags eh--I will bear that in mind for the future!