Helium Loses An Eye

Helium had to go into the vet last week because of what looked like an eye injury. There was blood just under the surface but no sign of what had caused it. The vet determined that there was no vision in that eye and sent me up to Helena, Montana to an eye specialist to have it double checked and then removed. Now he is back home and sporting a nifty plastic cone to protect the surgery site.
Here is a closeup shot. The dark patch is his skin pigmentation since they shaved the hair off around the surgery site. Who would have thought he'd be black under all that white hair!

The odd thing about this picture is that it looks like there is a gold colored eye in the middle of the dark patch. However, they sewed his eyelids shut, so there is definitely nothing there! It must be some funky glare with the plastic cone or the camera lens.

The eye specialist sent some tissue samples off to a lab to see if they could diagnose the problem. The results came back, and there was a malignant tumor inside the eyeball. Hopefully the cancer will not pop up anywhere else. Helium is one of my top dogs who raced with me at Ashton this year.