The Puppies' Eye Test

On Friday my pups had their first big car journey and their first visit to a vet! Here they are in the crate at the back of the car wondering what adventure they are going on now :-) As mini schnauzers can suffer from inherited eye problems they have to be tested by a specialist eye vet once they are 6 weeks old just to be sure there is no sign of congenital hereditary cataracts. There are other eye problems that us mini schnauzers can get but my pups are too young to be tested for those yet.

This was the certificate I got after my last eye test which you might remember I blogged about at the time. It has a special chart and lists the eye tests the vet has done. It showed I had no signs of hereditary cataracts, congenital hereditary cataracts or progressive retinal atrophy - those are all long horrible words but the eye conditions are even worse and they can make dogs go blind when they are really young. Me and Luke have our certificates to show we have no problems and hopefully our pups should all be fine as well. 

Here is the veterinary nurse putting the eye drops in one my little boys' eyes.

And here are my two little girls watching and wondering what's going to happen next!

"No problem", he said, "don't worry". And they were all as good as gold and didn't make a squeak even when the other great big dogs in the vet surgery were barking very loudly. After the eye drops went in they had to wait half an hour and then went to see the eye specialist vet who turned off the light and shone a torch in their eyes to check them out. And they were still so good :-) and all clear. They got a different kind of certificate from mine which was for all four of them:

And then they had the long journey home. Our local vets can't do eye testing so Judith & Leigh had to take my pups to another vet about 35 miles away - the same vet I went to for mine.

Here they are hoping they are going to get a treat for being good - Mabel is licking her lips at the thought :-)