I have a six week old puppy, who was a runt & only weighs in @ 3+ lbs right now. At what age would you have entropion tacked? She is on a medication at the moment. Who would you have perform the surgery, your vet or an opthamologist? I'm in CT.
I would not do any surgery on such a young puppy. Let him grow up, it may possibly correct it self.
On such a young puppy you risk surgically pulling the eye lip too tight, now you have a whole new set of problems. If it is not severe or causing him any pain, wait until he is closer to a year. If you are placing him you might have to offer him at at lower price with the understanding he might reguire corrective surgery.
Because of the pain associated with entropion, I would put a temporary tack in those eyes as soon as possible. If the condition doesn't improve by the time it is 3-4 months old, full fledged entropion surgery might be in order. Whether your vet or a specialist does the procedure will depend on how experienced your vet is.
If the medicine is relaxing the eyelid enough where the puppy is not constantly irritating the eye by squinting, you may just let him see if he'll grow out of it, but you can have your vet "tack" the eye with just a suture or two to pull the lid away from eye as well. I had a puppy out of unrelated lines years ago have this problem at this age and the vet simply put one suture under each eye (bottom eye lid turned inward) and as the puppy grew and when the sutures came out, there was no need for further surgery. This puppy was just placed in a pet home with full disclosure that it might need a corrective surgery in the future. Thanksfully that was not the case.
I still remember the horror "tack" job one vet did on a Shar Pei puppy. I was working for a vet at the time and just before closing this guy came in and wanted to know if his puppy looked ok and if this "tacking" seemed right to us. His vet virtually went in and removed all the wrinkles from this 8 week old puppy's face and there were rows and rows of sutures! No, that was not right. I never saw the guy or his pup again, but how horrible that this poor pup had to go through all that and have removed the one thing the breed is famous for-its wrinkles!
So, my advice is to talk to your vet and find out what he/she thinks should be done and if it doesn't seem right (no cutting anything at this age), then seek a second opinion or that of a opthamologist.
We had this happen a few years ago. Our regular vet advised that the puppy should have it's first shots and then be tacked. (at 8 wks) We left the tacks in for about 2-3 weeks and they were fine. Sometimes, with pups with alot of coat, the cycle begins with iritation and once the eye is iritated, it recedes more and the cycle continues. Tacking stops the cycle and full recovery is possible.
