Unfortunately,
the Cherry Eye is a frequently occurring problem in the Cane Corso. With this
condition, the third eyelid is inflamed or irritated, and shows itself like a
little red ball (Cherry) under the eye. A time where this inconvenience often
occurs is when a pup is teething. Sand and draft are also often considered as a
cause for a Cherry Eye. The gland which is inflamed has the function to keep the
eye clean from bacteria and dirt, but sometimes gets infected itself.
There
are 3 methods to remove a Cherry Eye:
1.
Removal
With this method, the entire Cherry Eye is cut away. This is quite a simple
procedure. Unfortunately, it has a con. In the infected glance the tear glance is
also present. With the removal of the Cherry Eye, this tear glance is also removed.
As a result of this, the dog might not produce enough tears. A dry eye could be
the result. To prevent blindness, one can keep the eye moist with drops. A dry
eye is however rare. Many veterinarians fully remove Cherry Eyes on a regular
basis and never had the dry eye problem.
2.
Attaching
With this method, the Cherry Eye is pulled back on its original position and
reattached with a few stitches. In the past, they often showed up again, after
which they had to be fully removed after all. Now there is a new stitching
method and the chances of the Cherry Eye showing up again are much smaller. For
this surgery, the dog has to go under a complete anaesthesia. The costs of the
surgery are considerably higher than with the removal method. And there are
still vets that use the “old” stitching method to reattach the Cherry Eye,
meaning that it might show up again.
3.
Partial removal
With this method, only the infected glance is removed. The tear glance will stay
intact. Because the infected glance is removed, the rest of the Cherry Eye will
pull back by itself. This will also be nicely stitched. This is a precision work
and the dog also has to go under a complete anaesthesia. With this method, it is
very important that surgery is done within days after the appearance of the
Cherry Eye. After a few days, the
tear glance will bend because of its unnatural
position, causing it to be damaged. Unless surgery is done before this time,
chances that the
tear glance will not function any more are present. When the
Cherry Eye gets lighter in color, the damage is usually already a fact. This is
also a risk with the attachment method, if one is too late with the attachment
of the Cherry Eye. Partial removal excludes the chances of the Cherry Eye
showing up again. If surgery is done in time, it also reduces the chances of a
Dry Eye to the maximum. This method has the pros of both earlier mentioned
methods. But, because of the full anaesthesia and the precision work, this
method is also the most expensive one. But considering all the pros of partial
removal, we highly recommend this method.
An
good site (in English) about a Cherry Eye is: http://www.eyevet.org/cherry.html
. Here the pros and cons of the methods 1 and 2 are discussed.
Unfortunately, method 3 (partial removal) is not discussed.
