Sep 14, 2026 · 9 min · 6 segments
A UK fresh dog food company just recalled nearly all of their meals after almost 200 reports of dogs developing sudden dry eye — and no one has confirmed why yet. In this video, I break down the full…
Amber ReaHost
So dry eye is the layman's term for what we call in veterinary medicine, keratoconjunctivitis seca, or KCS.
Now, it can sometimes confuse owners when they come in because what it most often looks like, and it can look like a number of different things, but what it most often looks like, what keys owners into bringing their pets to us is a really nasty mucoid eye.
But actually what is happening, now there could be an infection and there are ways that we test for that.
But what is actually happening in cases of KCS is there are two portions to your pets to your phone.
When a pet has KCS, clinical KCS, what is happening is the serous portion of the tears is no longer being produced in an adequate amount.
And so you are seeing the overproduction of that mucus and the lack of the production of the serous portion of the tear.
So how do we know that's going on? A lot of times you guys come in and you bring the pet and we know what it looks like.
We will take a little strip of paper A specialized paper has graduations measurements on there.
We put that in the eye and we have to hold it under the eyelid for a period of time and we can quantify how much of the serous portion of the tear is being produced.
Once that diagnosis is achieved, yes, there are treatment methods that are available that are very good at getting that tear production back to where it needs to be.
These medications focus on usually an inflammatory autoimmune response against the tear gland itself, the tear gland in the eye.
which is causing it to not produce enough of that portion, that liquid portion of the tears.
And so we can treat with cyclosporine or tacrolimus, which are both immune modulators can help bring back that tear production.
If that doesn't work, I've even heard of fancy procedures where they will take a salivary gland and reroute it to be able to produce tears.
So dry eye is the layman's term for what we call in veterinary medicine, keratoconjunctivitis seca, or KCS.
Now, it can sometimes confuse owners when they come in because what it most often looks like, and it can look like a number of different things, but what it most often looks like, what keys owners into bringing their pets to us is a really nasty mucoid eye.
But actually what is happening, now there could be an infection and there are ways that we test for that.
But what is actually happening in cases of KCS is there are two portions to your pets to your phone.
When a pet has KCS, clinical KCS, what is happening is the serous portion of the tears is no longer being produced in an adequate amount.
And so you are seeing the overproduction of that mucus and the lack of the production of the serous portion of the tear.
So how do we know that's going on? A lot of times you guys come in and you bring the pet and we know what it looks like.
We will take a little strip of paper A specialized paper has graduations measurements on there.
We put that in the eye and we have to hold it under the eyelid for a period of time and we can quantify how much of the serous portion of the tear is being produced.
Once that diagnosis is achieved, yes, there are treatment methods that are available that are very good at getting that tear production back to where it needs to be.
These medications focus on usually an inflammatory autoimmune response against the tear gland itself, the tear gland in the eye.
which is causing it to not produce enough of that portion, that liquid portion of the tears.
And so we can treat with cyclosporine or tacrolimus, which are both immune modulators can help bring back that tear production.
If that doesn't work, I've even heard of fancy procedures where they will take a salivary gland and reroute it to be able to produce tears.
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