What You Should Know About Dog Cataracts

Like people, dogs can develop cataracts with age.  This is a normal part of aging and can be corrected but doesn’t necessarily have to be.  Dog cataracts can also develop due to a trauma or some sort of infection or toxin.  While cataracts are typically seen in older dogs, they can happen to dogs of all ages.

A cataract is simply the result of what happens when the processes that keep the lens of your eye moist don’t work correctly.  This ends up with the lens losing transparency and some degradation of vision.  Cataracts often look filmy on the eye, but they are not to be confused with sclerosis which is the normal change of the dogs eye lens which happens around 6 years of age.  This gives it a milky appearance but does not affect the vision of the dog.

There are actually 3 different kinds of dog cataracts, although all have the same result and treatment.  Some dogs have cataracts from birth and these are called congenital cataracts.  They could be caused by infection or they may actually be inherited.  Developmental cataracts happen earlier in a dogs life and may also be inherited or caused by some sort of trauma. Senile cataracts are those that form in older dogs – over 6 years of age.

If your dog has cataracts, he might have impaired vision just like what happens in people.  This can be remedied by an operation, incidentally, the same one that they do on people with cataracts.  Whether or not you want to put your dog through this is up to you  as in some cases he may still have adequate vision and if he is quite old and operation might not be the right thing.

However, if your dog is younger or the vision impairment seems to be affecting his enjoyment of life, the operation is highly successful and fairly low risk, albeit rather expensive.

If you do want your dog to have cataract surgery, the earlier the better as once they get past a certain point the surgery cannot be performed.  The surgery consists of the cataract lens being removed and a new lens being placed on the eye.  Exactly the way they do it with people!

While dog cataracts can be corrected through surgery, there aren’t as many choices in replacement lenses as there are for people so dog cataract surgery doesn’t have the same success rate of restoring vision as it does for people.  However, if you feel it is right for your dog, then discuss it in depth with your Vet to get his or her opinion and see how you should proceed.