PLATTSBURGH -- First, Linda Pearson noticed Baby's left eye had turned cloudy.

The vet diagnosed the fluffy Pomeranian/miniature pinscher with glaucoma.

"And there was nothing we could do," said the Ellenburg woman. "It got worse and worse and worse. If you held your hand over her right eye, she couldn't see anything."

A second opinion proved the right one, though still not positive news -- the milky haze over Baby's eye was a cataract.

But she had one good eye, anyhow, Pearson consoled herself.

After about a year, though, Baby's right eye began growing opaque. And in three months, she was purblind.

"She was bumping into things, she wouldn't play anymore," Pearson said. "She would run right into a snowbank, into the curb. She couldn't find her food.

One day, Baby walked right off a dock into Lake Champlain.

"She just had no quality of life."

CANINE CATARACTS

Baby had come to Pearson at just eight weeks old, a rusty-gold ball of fluff that from the very start accompanied her to work every day at the artisan's Stained Glass Shoppe in Plattsburgh. It broke Pearson's heart to watch the dog's decline once blindness struck.

"I thought, I've just got to do anything I can.'"

Veterinarian Erik Eaglefeather gave Pearson the names of veterinarian ophthalmologists dotted around New England. But they'd either retired or weren't performing the surgery anymore.

Pearson contacted Cornell Institute and the University of Montreal -- both teaching facilities offered the same treatment for canine cataracts. She opted to stay closer to home.

The surgery, she was told, is a very delicate operation for dogs, with no guarantee of success. But she took Baby to Saint-Hyacinth, Quebec, for an exam and preliminary tests to determine her suitability for the procedure.