Meet Dexter! This little dude is also the Pet of the Week for this week! So you’ll see a lot of his shenanigans via this post and Instagram.

I decided to double up with Dexter because I realized that he is not the typical pup. If you didn’t pick up on it, this little guy only has one eye. I wanted to show case that even though he had to have one of his eyes removed he is still as happy as can be! He is able to live a happy and normal life just like any other pup.

So a little more on Dexter, the chihuahua.

He is one of my patients that I have been seeing for years! His humans are some of the best humans I know and they love him oh so much!

He will be 12 years old in July and he has been with his family since he was 8 weeks old.

Those are a lot of amazing years with his humans!

This little bugger loves people, except me apparently but more on that later, and is he very friendly. He likes other dogs (who aren’t Vincent – his younger but much bigger brother), and is tolerant of foster kittens that always seem to be in the house.

Although Dexter has mostly been a healthy pup he has had his tummy issues and run ins with pancreatitis since he was about 5 year old, so it’s the low fat diet life for him. Occasionally he does get some plain grilled chicken as a treat which he loves! My kinda guy!

A little bit on pancreatitis.

Just for those who have never heard of this term. Pancreatitis is actually a pretty common condition in dogs and cats. In simple terms, it essentially means inflammation of the pancreas. It can be acute or chronic, mild or severe.

I would describe Dexter’s pancreatitis as a chronic pancreatitis given that he has had occasional mild episodes come up over the last few years. Luckily, we have been able to manage him medically and his symptoms have yet to progress to a situation where he would need hospitalization for more aggressive treatments. Knock on wood!

I can elaborate on pancreatitis on a separate post.

And now to the elephant in the room.

What about the eye?

I would say it’s been at least a couple years now that Dexter has been without his eye.

It is a sensitive subject for his humans so we won’t go into too much detail about it.

This little guy had a little incident with an injury to the eye. This lead to several weeks of treatments for pain, inflammation, and infection. We thought he was improving and the eye was looking better, but the eye was not 100%. He lost vision in the eye and we were not able to get him off of eye drops or pain medications for fear of chronic pain with this eye.

After many weeks and many discussions, we decided that the best thing for Dexter would be surgery to remove the eye.

Many pet parents are terrified of this! The mention of a pet potentially losing an eye is probably one of the worst things you can tell a pet parent!

I do have to warn many owners of this when their pets come in with certain eye conditions, and the reactions across the board are usually horrified humans!

As you can see, Dexter seems to be living his best life regardless of his eye situation. And such is the fate of many if not all pets that lose one or both eyes!

The thought of living with a constant migraine (what imagine eye pain would feel like), pet parents having to harass their fur babies with multiple drops, multiple times a day, and a non-functional eye is not fun! Not one of those things is positive! So in those situations removal of the eye is the treatment of choice.

Dexter’s likes and dislikes

So now that you know all about Dexter’s medical history, I’ll end with some fun likes and dislikes.

Dexter loves sunbathing and sitting with his mama. Like most pups he likes eating food he isn’t suppose to and licking people inappropriately.

What he doesn’t like is being picked up or when people try to sit next to his mama. A true mama’s boy!

I would love to think that I am one of Dexter’s favourites, but as I alluded to earlier on in the post, it’s actually quite the opposite! I made the dislike list! Sigh.

I like to tell myself it isn’t true dislike because he still tolerates me. Not sure where or when we went wrong but at some point in the relationship he decided that I was the one person at the clinic that he was going to bark at. But he ain’t no fool. He’ll still take treats from me. That stink eye though! I can almost feel the laser beam coming out of it every time!

He’s a good boy and I am determined to win him over one day!