The journey of Rory

Hello everyone, I wanted to share the journey of my little soldier, Rory, who almost lost her eye!

A year and a half ago, she had had an accident at a pet sitter while I was on holiday. The pet called me to inform me that Rory had an accident she didn’t know how (if it were with another dog or such, we would never know), and her right eye was damaged. We were 5 hours away from her, we didn’t know the extent of her injury, and because we love our dog babies more than anything, we turned around and started driving back towards her. In the meantime, we called a specialized vet (we are fortunate to have one in our region of France) who is a dog ophthalmologist. With the few details we gave her over the phone (that her eye was milky white and she had blood), the vet told us to bring Rory the same night as soon as we could.

We arrived at the pet sitter and got Rory. I had never experienced such pain; she looked terrible. You need to know that Rory is a very “distant” dog… she doesn’t like cuddles or being petted; she HATES to be held by us, and often lives her little life of her own in our house. When Rory saw us she started crying and, while in the car cuddled in my lap and I could tell she was scared and in pain because she would’ve never done that otherwise (the only other time she has done so is when she broke her leg at 9 month old and she was in pain.)

We arrived at the vet, and she took one look at Rory. She said she needed emergency surgery to save her eye. She said it was a lot, and we preferred to preserve her sight or the “look” of her face and preserve the eye. My mom and eye exclaimed, “BOTH!!” And so the vet took her and said she would be under heavy pain meds for the night (it was already 9 p.m.) and that she would proceed with surgery the next morning.

I said goodbye to my little Rory and left. I cried all night because I felt so bad that I couldn’t explain to her what was going on… I couldn’t tell her that I left her at the vet for her own good and that I didn’t abandon her while she was in pain.

The next morning, around 11 a.m., the vet called us to ask us to come in at 3p.m. We arrived, and she brought Rory into the room. I was completely shocked to see Rory with her injured eye closed. I wonder how a dog keeps one eye closed like that.

The vet explained to us everything she did during surgery Rory had lost some cornea and she had to do a corneal graft with her own corneal that she took from her eye. The surgery went well, and to have the best possible recovery, she sewed her eyelids close to ensure no damage could be done to the eye. She would only open it in 1 month to see if Rory would recover her eyesight. She said she was very hopeful, but it was really hard for me to see Rory like that (I included a bunch of photos of her so you can see!)

So we waited one month. We had to control Rory because she is a very turbulent chihuahua (we like to say that she thinks she is a Great Dane 😂). She runs everyone and likes to play fighting with her chihuahua siblings. So we bought a dog stroller to keep her elevated and calm. It was a really long month for her. We could see she was bored, but it was for her best.

After the month my mom went back to the vet ( I wasn’t there I had to go back to college) and when my mom faced times me with Rory with both of her eyes open and she said she surgery had been successful I cried and screamed in my dorm room. The vet had done a miracle, she explained to my mom that the chances of her recovering full sight had been very low but Rory against all odds did recover her sight. The vet said it is also probably because of her very calm and controlled recovery, if we had let her play in the backyard she could have lost her sight. My mom told me she embraced the vet because of how happy and thankful she was.

Today Rory sees completely fine (that we can tell) the she only has a white scar on her cornea. And the sacre could be removed but to do so we would need to put her under anesthesia again and we don’t want to “just” for aesthetic purposes. So she lives with her little scare and it gives her a badass look in my opinion. A true pirate! 🏴‍☠️

Photos included in order of appearance: Rory before as a baby - the eye of Rory before surgery- Rory during her recovery- Rory right after her eye was reopened (you can see the scar) - Rory dressed as a pirate!)

So this is a sign for you, if your chihuahua ever has an accident, know that they age much stronger dogs that most people think and that with proper (strict) recovery they can have a beautiful life!