Cats and dogs eyes have
a lot of similar features to ours; cats, dogs, and our
eyes work basically like a camera. An image passes through a
pupil (a hole, the cats is slit shaped, ours and dogs are round) and is focused
by a lens onto a retina, then sent onto the brain for processing.

In the front is the cornea, a clear “window” which protects the
insides of the eye, which is filled with a thick “jelly” substance
(vitreous), the retina is in the back and forms into the optic nerve, which
attaches the eye to the brain. Got it?

Anyway, cats and dogs can suffer from a lot of the same ailments we get, like
pink eye (conjunctivitis). And they even are treated with the same
medications, for instance, they take antibiotics for their pink eye,
like us, and the same glaucoma medications for their glaucoma.

They also get cataracts,
a clouding of the lens of the eye, which happens naturally with age. Cataracts
slowly decease the ability to see clearly, and will, if left untreated , cause
blindness. This rarely happens in humans; people usually elect to have surgery
to correct the problem, since this is covered by major medical, but most pets
don’t have health insurance, and the surgery is expensive.

 Today there is no
“medication” that corrects cataracts, but if a medication is
discovered to stop cataracts in humans, I would bet it would also work in cats
and dogs. Hey kids, wouldn’t that be a cool school project? You would make a
lot of pet owners happy, but you would not make friends with the eye
surgeons. 

 

So the human eye has a
lot in common with those of cats and dogs, not only the way the eyes see, but
also some of the same conditions, diseases and treatments.

 Calm down Speedy,
you can have a treat now that I’m done writing my blog!