Hemorrhaging in left eye

Yesterday evening I saw that when Cai looked to the right, the left side of his left eye was bright red where the sclera should be white. No swelling and no damage around the eye. No change in behavior from Cai - he was his usual perky, barky self. Off to UC Davis we went for an emergency visit. We were there for 3 hours. They found that his eye was mostly healthy - good pressure, no scratches, no ulcers. They ran blood tests just in case it was a result of disease like a clotting disorder, but those came back clear. So we think that the bleeding is a result of a physical trauma, and the most likely candidate is that Terra hit him in the head with a giant paw and got his eye. She does that when she wants him to play with her. It does not get the intended result. This is why I usually don't leave them together unsupervised, but obviously I'll need to step up my game. We were sent home with some drops to put in twice a day and instructions to monitor and recheck in two weeks.

During the exam, Cai was well behaved and showed off his cooperative care training, except when the vet or student wanted to touch around his left eye. That was clearly painful, and he growled and snapped. They were both sympathetic. I realized that I had forgotten his custom made basket muzzle that I had ordered specifically for situations like this. We used a fabric muzzle. They let me do most of the restraint because Cai was much calmer when it was me handling him. I gave him lots of treats and breaks from the muzzle in between the vet checking his eyes with various instruments. He even did a mostly-voluntary blood draw at the end. He was nearing the end of his patience so I had to place my hands gently on his chest and side to remind him not to move, but he placed his paw in the vet's hand on his own and didn't shy away - we didn't need to use the muzzle for this part. After that the student was supposed to do a standard physical exam. (They had done the eye exam first, then blood work, then physical last since that was least pressing.) Cai grudgingly let her take his temperature and listen to his breathing and heart rate. He didn't let her touch him though - when she tried, he really started snarling. He was obviously DONE and she was scared by his response, so we stopped the physical exam.

I wish we could have made it even less stressful for him, but clearly our prep work at his regular vet, plus all the handling practice I've done over the years, had a positive impact. I was proud of my little monster.

I talked a little about clicker training with the student, and I narrated what Cai was doing and "saying" as we worked. I hope I helped educate them a bit (since vets don't usually get much education on behavior and training) and made a good impression as well.