Health stuff a digest of sorts GH

[Gina Heitz <brier@oregonsbest.com>]

Hi All,

For the Casino litter but of interest to others as well:  Peggy and I are 
having  goopy eyes with both Reo and Katie, they wake up every morning with 
green to yellow "snot" sometimes strings.  During the day Reo has more than 
her fair share of eye "buggers".  I just want to share this with you 
guys.  This is part of growing in my opinion and of no concern to take to 
the vet.  Some vet's might call it conjunctivitis and treat it, but it's 
arbitrary treatment.  Meaning that no bacteria or other issue is present in 
a culture? Cause unknown.   Not all conjunctivitis is "bad" but certainly 
some are. Bacteria,  fungus and allergies can be causes as well as growth 
can be a cause.  As well as some things are best left for the immune system 
to overcome on it's own.  In other words I do not subscribe to treating a 
lot of things with out first giving the immune system a chance on it's own 
to develop and over come the problem.  Good example of that is the 
vaginitis in puppies, that just goes away with time. Demodex too, more on 
this later...

Here is what I know without a doubt, this litter unlike the One litter 
(same breeding) are looser in the eye the two litters genetically are way 
different as to what physical traits they pulled from their 
parents.  Meaning just because they have the same parents does not make 
them clones.  One can look at DiTTo and Reo and see that! <LOL>

Anyway it's my opinion that even though the symptoms on this link provide a 
good example of what both Reo and Katie are going through and are alarming, 
I am not 
concerned. 
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&cat=1606&articleid=251

Rather I personally am going to watch Reo for growth changes.  SeaJay was 
looser in the eye as a puppy as his head grew, Sprite has looser dogs 
behind her though she and Gidget both have a tighter eye.  What I see is 
that that Reo and others perhaps pulled from these traits that were doubled 
up on.  Mind you these are not awful traits...  Just they are what they are 
and though we try to breed away from them sometimes the come though.

One therapeutic thing you can do to keep things flowing better is to simply 
go to the drugstore and get some Artificial Tears and use a few drops in 
the AM and in the PM just before bed if you want to.  Other than that I 
would just not really worry.  Look at your dogs eyes you may see that they 
are deep set and the bottom lids might be loose.  This will probably change 
as the head grows, and if not it's really no big deal, in my opinion.  As 
with allergies, I have them personally, my eyes also tend to matter 
more.  I also am not a full blinker according to my eye doc and because of 
that I matter more, because I do not lubricate my eyes well when I do 
blink.  Hence contacts are not comfortable for me...

Anyway I have another topic but need to get moving so I will hold that for 
later in the day...  So stay tuned!

Gina