Meet Tinkerbell! She’s a 10-year-old Chihuahua who has been battling glaucoma for many years.

Canine glaucoma is a condition in which inadequate fluid drainage in the eye increases the pressure inside the eye. Canine glaucoma causes pain and blindness in the dog’s eye. Often, by the time canine glaucoma is diagnosed in one eye, it already exists in the other eye. So, treatment in these eyes is directed toward relieving discomfort in affected eyes, while delaying the advance of disease in the other eye. Canine glaucoma is hard to catch, since dogs show very few symptoms – even if they are in pain. However, one sign is bloodshot eyes or cloudy eyes.

Tinkerbell’s owner has been treating her eyes with eye drops for some time, but her left eye had been very painful. We finally removed Tinkerbell’s pain by removing the diseased eye, and she is on her way to a pain-free life!

Even if a dog loses an eye to canine glaucoma, he or she can easily adapt to having one eye, and will be happier and healthier.

You can see Tinkerbell’s bulging left eye in the first photo, and her post-op photo in the second photo.