It happened faster than I can remember, as most accidents usually do. I was sitting quietly with my cat Rango curled up on my lap when all of a sudden I hear my puppy shriek. I immediately knew my cat had just scratched her face. My one terrifying fear has always been that one day he would scratch her eye. While she immediately looked scared and had some eye discomfort, I soon began to notice she was looked better and began to play again. She began to open her eye a bit more and was her happy self again. I thought I had dodged a bullet there thinking the scratch had been somewhere on the outside of the eye and she would get better soon.
Then this happened the next day. "Mom, why is Olivia's eye white?" My daughter told me when she came home from school. My heart sank. That's when I knew something much worse had happened. Not only was her right eye completely covered with a white cloud, she was blind too and couldn't see from it. We all busted into tears. "Oh no, Olivia is blind!"
I felt like a complete failure in being able to protect her like she needed to. A million things began to come to our heads as to ways we could have prevented it from happening. My daughter blamed herself and I blamed myself and I soon realized I had to focus and console her because she was taking it real bad. I was so sad at the idea she would go through her life struggling with her vision.
After I stopped freaking out, I did the best move I could've done and googled this situation. Remember, I am a new puppy mom and there are so many things I've never gone through with cats. I've had plenty of cats fight before, but I've never encountered a cat scratch another cat in the eye. They just somehow know how to protect against that. I do know this was a sneak attack and my poor Olivia did not see it coming. I mean, I didn't even realize it happened!
The next morning I immediately made a vet appointment and prayed she would be ok. The vet was wonderful and gave me great hope that her eye would heal. I returned a week later and she had healed to about 80%! The doctor made sure to tell me never to remove her cone as this could cause the condition to worsen during the healing process. I did exactly that and toughed it out all two weeks. Her eye and vision were the most important to me at the moment. It's been two weeks now and her vision has returned and is doing very well. There is a small scar tissue in her eye but very grateful she's so much better.
I wanted to bring this up because of how important it is to take your pet to the vet if you suspect a cat scratch on the eye. Cat's claws are full of bacteria and with a scratch it will introduce it into the eye and if not treated properly with antibiotics, it could cause blindness. This was the time when I found out just how much I care for this little girl. She has definitely won our hearts all around the house. You know this when you cry like a baby when they are in any pain. She is a sweetheart and even though an eye scratch is very painful she handled it so well and was so brave. I made sure to give her antibiotics twice a day and eye drops every four hours as prescribed. Let me tell you, this little girl may be small but she is so so strong. It wasn't easy but she soon learned it was for her own good.
I've learned to keep a closer eye on her and the cats around the house and teach them to respect each other's space. I've come to the realization my cats may never like dogs, but they have to learn to live together. I pray this never happens to any other little puppy but it definitely happens. I always feared something like this could happen, and then it did. It was devastating but a major life lesson. A cat fighting with a dog should be reprimanded immediately to prevent a serious injury like this.
Here is a wonderful page where I learned about the vet procedure: https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/corneal-ulcers-in-dogs
![]() |
My poor baby had her first serious injury |