Another trip to the vets for us today - poor Jura has been there 5 times in 6 weeks for 4 different things! This time it's conjunctivitis. Dreading trying to get the eye drops in, am waiting for OH to get home from work to help, and currently roasting some chicken for treats to try and make the process easier. She wasn't happy with the vet going near her eye at all, but am hoping that's partly due to the recent frequent visits there and the amount of times he's had to take her temperature recently, which has meant he is no longer on her Christmas card list! Thankfully she is still happy for me to bath her eye but any advice on eye drops and 5 month old puppies would be greatly appreciated!
It seems to be a puppy thing. Oban had it at 6 months. Oban is really good about being handled but what I did for the eye drops (3 x a day at first) was sit on my bathtub. This worked well because it's lower than a chair and the room is small and pup is easily contained with the door shut. So, me on tub, Oban between my legs and facing away from me. My legs and knees holding him in place. My left hand reaching sort of from behind him, the eye dropper in the right hand sort of coming from behind too. Open eye, drop in med. done. TREAT, YAY, WAsn't that good? Because you've got to get him into the bathroom again to repeat. Treat in the bathroom without doing the eyes. As I say, Oban handles easily but it only takes me, I don't need any help.
Sorry she is having problems like this. My technique for putting eye drops in involves not letting her see you put the bottle near the eye. This is easiest with 2 people. First person holds the drops, second person cradles the dogs head and with the thumb of one hand gently pushes on the lower lid whilst using the other hand to partially close the upper lid. By pushing gently on the lower lid you make the third eyelid come over the eye, this gives you a dog that can't see the drops coming but a nice area to aim with the drops. With practice, you can make this a one person operation. This is really quite difficult to explain so if you don't get my drift I'll try and post photos of the technique - I'm off out tonight but will have a go tomorrow if necessary.
Lochan your technique worked a treat! First lot of eye drops in no problem. Think it will definitely be a two person job for a while though, but was a lot easier than I was anticipating - thank you
hope Jura is better soon and no need to see the vet again for a few months. Why is it vets always seem to forget to demonstrate the best way of getting drops etc. into dogs/cats? You always get home and realise you have no clue how to do it and it sounded so easy when the vet said use the drops 2 or 3 times a day
Willow had conjunctivitis at the beginning of the summer. She was so good with the drops; I think they soothed her eye, so as much as she didn't really like them going in, after each drop, you could see her visibly relax. I gave her a chunk of dehydrated tripe after each application (three times a day) and very soon, she would see the bottles and jump straight up on the sofa I found the easiest way of applying them was for her to stand on the sofa, draped over the back and with me behind the sofa, so we were pretty much eye level with each other. But if you dog doesn't like the drops, this wouldn't work at all!
