Ocular Emergencies in Small Animal Patients.

Small animal ocular emergencies vary from relatively benign to potentially vision or life threatening, with significant overlap in clinical signs. Careful ophthalmic examination in dim light conditions with a bright light source and competent patient head restraint are crucial to properly diagnosing ocular disease. Adjunctive ophthalmic diagnostic testing should be performed to rule out corneal ulceration, glaucoma, and dry eye before empiric topical antibiotic or steroid medications are prescribed. Most emergency cases present because of ocular redness, cloudiness, discomfort, apparent bulging, or vision loss; categorizing differential diagnoses on this basis can be helpful to the emergency clinician.