Author Topic: Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA) in Dogs No Longer a Hopeless Disease  (Read 733 times)

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Offline DeeDee

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Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA) is an inherited disease of the retina (the “film in the camera”) in dogs, in which the rod cells in the retina are programmed to die. PRA occurs in both eyes simultaneously and is nonpainful. There are many different types of inherited retinal degenerative diseases in purebred dogs, and discussing these are beyond the scope of this article. PRA occurs in most breeds of dogs and also occurs in mixed breeds. It is recessively inherited in all breeds studied, with the following exceptions: PRA is dominantly inherited in Old English Mastiffs and Bullmastiffs, and is sex-linked and found primarily in male dogs in Siberian Husky and Samoyed breeds.

Because PRA makes rods die, and rods are responsible for vision in dim light (“night vision”), the first clinical signs that the owner often notices are night-blindness (poor vision in dim light) and that the pupils are dilated; owners often notice a “glow” and increased “eye shine” from the eyes. Clinical signs in dogs with PRA vary from the dog first becoming night blind in the early stage of PRA, to the entire visual field in all light levels becoming affected in advanced PRA. In the final stage of PRA, the dog is completely blind. The natural course of the disease, if specific daily antioxidant supplementation is not given, is that all dogs with PRA will develop blindness within one year.

Read the rest at: https://animalhealthsupplements.com/diseases/pra-in-dogs/
"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semihuman. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog." Edward Hoagland
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