Can cockers have PRA and not go blind.

[Countrygirl]

I didn't want to highjack Amanda9586's thread about Poppy having PRA, so have started a new one.  Amanda mentioned that one of the symptoms with Poppy was that she had night blindness.

When we got our last cocker, Sophie, I had never heard of PRA and was therefore totally clueless about it.  Sophie was born in September and was allowed out into the big wide world just before Christmas, so it went dark early.  I used to take Sophie little walks and some of these were during the evening.  She was never happy about going out in the dark and used to fall down kerbs and trip back up them, I never thought anything about it and it sounds awful now but I thought it was funny.  It never changed and she never liked being out in the dark.  In fact thinking about it if she went for a wee when it was dark one of us used to go with her and wait for her.  We are very keen walkers, we live on the borders of the Derbyshire Peak District and quite often are out all day walking.  If we were out walking all day with Sophie and were still out when the light started to really go she would refuse to walk and we used to carry her.  Again, we never thought anything of it.

When she was 11, I was out walking locally with her when I met a friend who was with another lady.  We were chatting when she suddenly said 'do you realise your dog has cataracts'.  I was really upset and took Sophie to the vets the next day, as I thought if she needs an operation I want her to have it now, not when she is older.  The vet thoroughly examined her and said she didn't have cataracts, she could see what the woman meant but what she had was a condition which was common in cockers.  It sounds stupid now but I didn't ask any more, I think I was just relieved that she didn't have cataracts.

Sophie lived until she was 14, happily still walking up to 7 miles at a time until about 3 weeks before we lost her.  She never had a problem with her sight during the day, she never bumped into anything and when out walking she never lost me and she could spot someone we knew before I did.  Her night vision never changed, she still wouldn't walk in the dark.

So now I am wondering, did Sophie have PRA, is that what the vet meant when she examined her but didn't tell me.  Can cockers have PRA and not go blind, or is there such a thing as just night blindness.

Sorry again to Amanda9586 for sort of highjacking her thread.

[KellyT]

well... as per my answer to Amanda9586 .. Millie has PRA... apparently - diagnosed 3 years ago and told she'd be blind in a year.

Like your Sophie what we noticed at first was a kind of night blindness - however she is totally fine in darkness (oddly) but strange half light / near darkness and that's worst. 
She too hates walking in this kind of light - if you let her off she walks behind you and takes very tentative steps, very slowly, if you keep her on the lead she is still slow, but more confident - you have to constantly chat to her to coax her along.
I thin in this light she sees 'blobs' at a distance, for example you walking towards her, but as you get closer and perhaps extend your hand it freaks her out because all of a sudden you're not a blob and something is coming at her!

She has 'misty eyes' as well, but they are misty 'inside', not on her corneas where cataracts are; but they look like cataracts but they aren't cloudy or milky like cataracts I've seen on other dogs / people. 
Her pupils don't react properly to light and aren't perfect circles anymore, they seem 'broken' and 'jagged'.

Her peripheral vision isn't great either, she bumps into things, trips up kerbs (light level dependent), she struggles to 'recognise' you from a distance and has often trotted off following someone else across the field! 

[amanda9586]

Well its quite comforting to know that perhaps dogs can have PRA symptoms and not go completely blind - kind of gives me some hope.  Poppy like Sophie has always not really liked going for a walk in the dark so I'm now wondering if she has had problems long before we really spotted something 

Officially Poppy has not been tested for PRA as the vet said that we could test but it would either prove she has a standard? form of PRA or not and if not she could still have a mutated version of PRA that the test does not show - either way there is no treatment he said so we did not feel there was any point.  He said the PRA test is more for if you wanted to breed and get an all clear. 

Her eyes are almost Glowing in half light sometimes (like when you take a photo and get red eye but you can see it in certain lights with Poppy - perhaps this is what that lady was referring to with Sophie? 

[KellyT]

Her eyes are almost Glowing in half light sometimes (like when you take a photo and get red eye but you can see it in certain lights with Poppy - perhaps this is what that lady was referring to with Sophie? 

Millie's eyes do exactly the same - We actually went for a referral to an eye specialist with Millie to see just how bad the problem was, and to confirm if it was PRA - it's gPRA - which is the usual one I think.

The Vet specialist wore these special examining glasses with a camera on the top so we could see what she sees - it was actually quite cool  but for the fact that we were being told our dog would be blind in a year!

Anyway as she shone a light over Millie's eye you could see how instead of nicely absorbing the light Milli's retinas basically reflected it back out because they were 'broken'.  There was no other damage inside her eye or around her optic nerve etc.  As the years have gone on the 'glowing' effect is more noticeable in both eyes, initially it was mostly her left eye, and she definitely is worst on this side now when you approach her.

[Jessie_Pup]

That's what we noticed with Dylan before his cataracts fully developed, like he had red-eye.


Erica.