question about toby

[jimmyk]

toby is my 2 and a half year old cavilier king charles spaniel.
i recently noticed his right eye looks different than his left.
the white part of his right eye looks dark...it has a brownish color to it, although not as dark as the eye center.
is this normal?

[Pat]

Sounds as if you are describing a double pigmented eye. This is normal and is actually desirable for a show dog.

Pat

[Brian M]

Hi

I knew a man who had eyes of different colours and a long time ago there was a another man in The Timber Trade
who when at evening dress events and after a good few drinks his party piece was to take his eye out (glass eye )
pop in his beer swirl it round take it out and pop it back in ,sure stopped the conversation .

[JessieAndMe]

Hi

I knew a man who had eyes of different colours and a long time ago there was a another man in The Timber Trade
who when at evening dress events and after a good few drinks his party piece was to take his eye out (glass eye )
pop in his beer swirl it round take it out and pop it back in ,sure stopped the conversation .

I had to read that twice...
Could have sworn that said, he wore evening dresses


Does anyone have a photo of what double pigmentation looks like? I had a Google, but there aren't any definitive photos.

[Kate H]

Pat wrote: Sounds as if you are describing a double pigmented eye. This is normal and is actually desirable for a show dog.

This puzzled me - all my Cavaliers have come from show stock and all but one have had clear whites - it's what makes tris look so wicked, that glint of white in black fur! The exception is Oliver, who has dark red round his eyes, but this seems (according to my vet) to be related to his eye problems stemming from his CM. The UK breed standard doesn't specifically mention eye whites, but a whole ring of white round the eye would affect the typical Cavalier expression. The US standard used to say (perhaps still does?) that a white surrounding ring is a fault but not a disqualifying one - implying that the whites should be white but not show too much. So Cavaliers shouldn't show a great deal of white, but it should be there (otherwise there could be eye problems) and it should be white. I suppose some show people may feel that 'brown whites' help the eyes to look bigger, but in my experience of both owning Cavaliers and seeing many show Cavaliers, such eyes are not 'normal' (in the sense of common).

Kate, Oliver and Aled

[Karlin]

The cosmetic elements usually aren't disqualifying faults but show folks say it all depends on the judge and most seem to hold such faults against dogs (sure wish documented cardio/MRI *health* was an element of breed standards for this breed! Rather than trivialities like eye colour...).

Only one of my 3 show-bred dogs had double pigmentation (ie a brown 'white') but both my rescue puppy farm/byb dogs do!

[Soushiruiuma]

Guinness has one brown 'white' (properly called sclera, I believe). I asked my vet about it, because I was afraid it was injured, but she said he's just built that way. Thistle (who is from showier lines) has white on both eyes, but her eyes don't bug out like Guinness' do, so it isn't visible usually.