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Thread: Just a point to ponder

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    Just a point to ponder

    Do animals (other than home sapiens) become presbyoptic with age.
    I know cats have some rather interesting visual systems especially vertically and at near. But I rather suspect by cat (20+ years old) has difficulty with her near vision.
    I can't ever recall having read a single word on presbyopia in animals other than ourselves.

    Chip

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    Master OptiBoarder rbaker's Avatar
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    Yes they do. Mammalian lenses are quite alike (and I would guess other phylum as well.) Years ago, we had a pug who was quite myopic. He used to sit by me at the table while we ate and stared unblinkingly at me. His gaze was so intent that I was able to scope him. That pooch could stare down Sonny Liston if a pork chop were at stake. And, I'm sure that we have all had a dog or cat who developed cataracts in their old age.

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    Yup!
    Operations for cataract are everyday affairs; some aging, presbyopic dogs have been fitted with plastic contact lenses.
    Taken from the last line of the first page here...
    http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...5747-2,00.html

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    I was watching Fox News the other day and there was a segment on a miniature horse used by a blind lady as a guide. I only saw part of it but it said that the horse was having difficulty judging objects at near and distance, which was a real problem for the blind lady, obviously. A Vet and OMD did surgery on the horse's eyes and now it can see again and hopefully the blind lady won't get run over now. I'm not sure what ocular condition the horse had but I would imagine it had something to do with cataracts and probably some refractive error as well. It seemed very interesting.
    I also read in a magazine where a cat was fitted with contact lenses after some type of corneal injury and the cat's owner paid thousands of dollars for the treatment. Maybe we should think about becoming feline or canine ophthalmic technicians??!!

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    One of my friend's cat has had a corneal transplantation recently.
    It was born with herpes in both eyes gracefully given by its mother...
    Scratching only was no longer enough.
    Very expensive.

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    Redhot Jumper Animal Vision......................


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    Rising Star walleye's Avatar
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    just a point to ponder

    I don't know about presbyopia in animals but years ago I did retinocsopy on my pet rabbit. And the result was plano. Perfect vision.

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    Quote Originally Posted by walleye View Post
    I don't know about presbyopia in animals but years ago I did retinocsopy on my pet rabbit. And the result was plano. Perfect vision.
    Delete.
    Last edited by Metronome; 05-18-2009 at 12:01 AM. Reason: Delete.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Andro View Post
    I'm guessing that all animals have perfect vision. The reason God caused people to have imperfect vision is because He knew that we would invent glasses and contact lenses.
    you know, you could be on to something.

    (if the idea of evolution bothers you, stop reading now)

    I bet animals in need of vision correction dont last long in the wild. the gazelle with perfect distance vision has less chance of being eaten then the one that needs a -12 correction.

    so more emmetropic animals get to breed, have more emmetropic babies, etc.

    Humans on the other hand, havent cared about vision as far as natural selection goes for maybe 200 years.

    I bet that 600 years ago there were more emmetropic humans. Today those of us cursed by glasses/contacts have pretty much equal chance of having offspring as an emmetrope, we are breeding ourselves into glasses!

    I think the same can be applied to domesticated animals. i would imagine dogs, who have been domesticated about as long as humans, have a similar ratio of emmetropes to us.

    Am I wrong? anyone know a vet who can get us some figures?
    Life is too important to take seriously.
    WALDO!

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    You wrong. Humans have had visual problems for many centuries if not forever. The myopes became tool makers and scholars, the hyperopes hunters and ships captains.

    Supprised we haven't have an OMD chime in and give us an evolution of the eye lecture.

    And before you ask, old animals do get cataracs, from chickens to dogs for sure. But chickens have been known to regernerate lenses if lost traumaticly.

    Chip
    Last edited by chip anderson; 01-29-2009 at 09:35 PM. Reason: Mo bout dem chickn

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    opti-tipster harry a saake's Avatar
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    cats

    ever notice if a cat has one eye green and the other blue, there always deaf, why i dont know

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    Quote Originally Posted by chip anderson View Post

    Supprised we haven't have an OMD chime in and give us an evolution of the eye lecture.


    How do scientists explain the evolution of the human eye?

    Although scientists have offered explanations for the evolution of the human eye, the question is, can they really explain the evolution of the human eye?

    The debate started in the eighteenth-century with theologian William Paley. He argued that it was easy to distinguish a designed thing like a watch from a product of a random process like a rock. Paley also considered the things in nature with an apparent design as even more complex than a watch. Consequently, those things were even greater evidence of design. He used the human eye as an example of such a designed instrument and compared it with a telescope.

    Richard Dawkins picked up on Paley’s watch theme in 1986 with his book, “The Blind Watchmaker.” He argued that the eye could have evolved and that natural selection is the blind watchmaker. Evolutionists explain that a light sensitive spot could have existed initially and that spot gave it a potential survival advantage, allowing it to evade a predator. They postulate that random mutations caused the light sensitive spot to move into a depression deep enough to make “vision” a little sharper. This is analogous to a pinhole camera. They postulate that eventually, the spot evolved into a retina and a lens formed at the front of the eye. ..................................

    Read the whole article : http://www.allaboutcreation.org/evol...an-eye-faq.htm

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    Paper Shuffler GOS_Queen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by harry a saake View Post
    ever notice if a cat has one eye green and the other blue, there always deaf, why i dont know
    One of my friends has a dalmation with one brown eye and one blue - he's deaf - my friend uses sign language to communicate with him. I only know the signs for "good dog" and "come" ... :)

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    Paper Shuffler GOS_Queen's Avatar
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    Chip - that's an interesting question. I do know that the sweet little old dog I adopted in 1997 (I was blessed to have had the pleasure of her companionship for 5 years) had cataracts ... (I refered to them as "dogaracts").

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    Quote Originally Posted by chip anderson View Post
    Do animals (other than home sapiens) become presbyoptic with age.
    This is how you test. Find a middle-aged dog or cat without cataracts. Shove some reading material or a favorite toy, etc in the animal's face at about 2-4 inches. If they back away quickly, they are presbyopic.

    That's what my kids do to me. My pre-presbyopic (so she says) wife laughs every time.

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    Underemployed Genius Jacqui's Avatar
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    IF I can ever get the katz to sit still long enough, I'll do a quick refraction and publish the results here. I do know one has a cataract and I'm trying to find a good feline ophthalmologist for her. How do they do feline cataracts?? IOL or lenticulars??

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