a wonderful, inspirational story written by Cindy Kaufman, Eli’s mom, guardian and angel.

Eli’s Story

Eli was 4 years old when he was surrendered to the Cochrane & Area Humane Society (CAHS) on May 26, 2017. At this time, he had both of his eyes intact.

Over the next few weeks Eli was in and out of foster homes and always returned by fosters due to a tendency to bite. He also had several adopters back out for the same reason.

At the time of his surrender, I was an active volunteer at CAHS and had previously fostered 3 dogs. On July 21, 2017, I received an email from the volunteer coordinator in which Eli was included as needing a break from the shelter with a foster home. I asked to foster him and was approved to pick him up on July 24, 2017.

I fostered Eli for the next 5 weeks. He did tend to bite, but somehow, I just knew there was a lovable little dog buried somewhere in that scared little body. I fell in love with Eli in about 3 days but took my time with my decision to adopt him. Eli’s official Gotcha Day is September 4, 2017. CAHS adoption staff told me that the person who surrendered Eli did not properly socialize him with other dogs or humans, and she allowed small children to play with him unsupervised. There was very likely also some abuse during this time. The lack of socialization and suspected abuse resulted in severe behaviour and reactivity issues. It was also suspected that Eli was bred in a puppy mill due to a number of health issues (limb deformities and severe skin allergies/disease). Little did I know, that was only the tip of the iceberg…

It’s hard to remember now, but I think Eli probably bit me every day at least once for an entire year. The more he learned to trust me, the more time passed in between bite incidents. When he would bite, I would calmly leave the area that we were in, tell him he hurt my feelings, so I wasn’t going to sit/play with him anymore. It didn’t take long before he started to come over and bow his head down for some affection after that, almost like an apology!

On January 28, 2018, approximately 4 months after I adopted Eli, his left eye became very cloudy. He was squinting and it looked very painful. After two vet visits (one emergency clinic and one with sedation to get a good look at his eye), Eli was diagnosed with glaucoma, an aggressive eye disease with no cure. The fluid inside the eye fails to properly drain which causes intraocular pressure (IOP) to build, which in turn causes intense pain (like having a constant migraine with no pain relief). A normal eye pressure for a dog, measured the same way as blood pressure, in millimetres of mercury (mmHg), is 20-28. When Eli’s eye pressure was tested on February 10, it was 52 mmHg. This high pressure detached his retina and severed his optic nerve, causing irreversible blindness. As he was already blind in his left eye, it made sense to surgically remove his eye (enucleation) to relieve the pain of the high IOP.

Dr. Kelli Ramey (then at VCA Western Vet) did Eli’s left enucleation and right retinopexy (laser to help keep the retina from detaching) on February 26, 2018. She inserted a silicone prosthesis in his eye socket to replace his eye, so that his eyelid wouldn’t sink in. He did so well and recovered very quickly. There was no adjustment time required as he had already been dealing with being able to see out of only one eye. He was so much happier without all that pain.

We were out of the woods for a while but then, as I was cautioned, the glaucoma came for Eli’s right eye in May 0f 2021. Despite the retinopexy done in 2018 and eyedrops to lower IOP, we could not keep the pressure down. Eventually his retina detached, and optic nerve severed as well, and he was completely blind. Once again, we sought surgery and care from Dr. Ramey, now at Calgary Animal Eye Care. Eli had his second enucleation on March 30, 2022. He also did amazing with this anesthesia and recovery.

Since going completely blind, Eli has still managed to flourish and live what I hope is his best life. We still play and go for walks when the weather is relatively nice. Eli can still do almost everything he could do before he went blind. The only thing he needs help with is going down the stairs. I carry him down the stairs because he has no depth perception.

In July 2023 he had a bad flare up of his skin disease that required general anesthesia to shave him down completely to be able to treat the skin. Then in December of 2023 he went under general anesthesia again to have 8 broken teeth removed. He sailed through both of these procedures as well. He has such a strong heart to have been able to handle 5 full general anesthesia sedations in only 7 years (he had been sedated for dental extractions when he was at CAHS).

After the skin flare-up and dental surgery, I started to worry about how much time I might have left with Eli and decided that when he felt better, I wanted to get some professional photos done with him. In researching photographers, I stumbled across Joy at Pup Tent Photography and I’m so glad I did. She has been so patient and so kind with us. After finding her in October 2023, she allowed me to have “first pick” of fall dates in 2024 to do our photos, because I had been having difficulty with another photographer continually postponing and cancelling on me. We finally did our photo shoot on September 28 and 29, 2024 and I could not be happier with the results (see below). We share our photos on Instagram. Eli’s new account handle since April 2022 is “elitheblindpup”. We appreciate any new followers and positive interactions.