please help - impaired vision?? - Page 1

Hi!

I adopted a female german shepherd in April from a shelter. She is around 2 years old. I'm worried about her vision. She often misses the tennis ball when I throw it at the park. She also tends to trip when running to catch the ball. When she drinks from her water bowl, she is sloppy drinking and misses the bowl. She is my first german shepherd and maybe this is normal? 

Thanks for any advice/comments!  

She is young for this but have the vet check her eyes for a condition called pannus. Is the white  at the edges of her eyes red  and are there any lesions ( looks like a scratched part or circle on the eye)? There is also something called I believe corneal dystrophy  the GSDs can get. It might be worthwhile to have an ophamologist do the exam. Sometimes dogs like humans can be nearsighted or farsighted and that might be her problem.  I have found many GSDs to actually be a mixture of the two. It's the in between areas they seem to have problems with. For example it is common for GSDs to do a "keyhole" outrun in herding. Instead of making a nice curved pear shape outrun like a BC (who are clearly farsighted) our guiys often run straight up the middle ( basically on command) and at some point they spot the stock and curve out to make the keyhole and get behind them to pick them up.

However, she also might just be klutz tho the tripping worries me a bit.

Thank you for adopting her. You might check out clicker training and teaching her to focus on you and see if that changes anything. Meanwhile add some fish oil ( Costco 1000 mg 1 - 2x day) and natural vit e( 400 mg) to her diet. The fish oil helps with coat and inflammation and if she does have pannus will help with that since it is an immune inflammatory condition. Good luck, let us know how it goes.

She is young for this but have the vet check her eyes for a condition called pannus. Is the white  at the edges of her eyes red  and are there any lesions ( looks like a scratched part or circle on the eye)? There is also something called I believe corneal dystrophy  the GSDs can get. It might be worthwhile to have an ophamologist do the exam. Sometimes dogs like humans can be nearsighted or farsighted and that might be her problem.  I have found many GSDs to actually be a mixture of the two. It's the in between areas they seem to have problems with. For example it is common for GSDs to do a "keyhole" outrun in herding. Instead of making a nice curved pear shape outrun like a BC (who are clearly farsighted) our guiys often run straight up the middle ( basically on command) and at some point they spot the stock and curve out to make the keyhole and get behind them to pick them up.

However, she also might just be klutz tho the tripping worries me a bit.

Thank you for adopting her. You might check out clicker training and teaching her to focus on you and see if that changes anything. Meanwhile add some fish oil ( Costco 1000 mg 1 - 2x day) and natural vit e( 400 mg) to her diet. The fish oil helps with coat and inflammation and if she does have pannus will help with that since it is an immune inflammatory condition. Good luck, let us know how it goes.

I would say have her looked at by a vet.
If you notice her having problems seeing things then surely a vet will also.
What could be causing this I cannot say.
Could be many things.