Dog got into a fight with his brother and hurt his eye, what do I do?

[u/SomeGrumption]

while I was away my dog (male yorkipoo of 9 years)got into a fight with my sisters dog (we all live together) and hurt his eye. I personally couldn’t see anything myself when I got home (it happened around the same time I was coming back inside). But one eye is definitely red but he looks 90% the same. I’m just taking her word for it since she was the only one around;
tho she IS prone to panic regularly

Behaviors normal, no spilling blood or huge gashes or anything, she also washed out and put some anti bacterial ointment above the eye so that could be it as well.

He IS struggling to keep it open and is frequently blinking. But is that from the fight or from the fact that his all around his eye is plastered in ointment?

I’ve also gotten my eye infected and injured several times in my life. And while never doctor visit worthy. A mix of the initial pain AND often having to wash, hot press and plaster it with ointments similarly lead to my eye/face responding about the same way. Like if I washed his eye out would he still, be doing this. ?
But obv it may be to soon for that.

She asked if I could take him to the vet today to get him checked out. And beyond being broke. We and more specifically I am in the middle of taking care of my dad who recently had knee surgery And he’s the stubborn type that no matter what you say or do, he’s hellbent On doing things himself even if it kills him. Like beyond falling 4 times recently. Literally JUST a few days ago he almost passed out and collapsed onto a hard wood table and computer. Literally the only reason I’m not in the ER with docs picking out grey matter. Is that I just happened to be in the kitchen to catch him standing up and being unresponsive in time.

Anyone who’s taken care of people like this can especially gather this is NOT the kind of person who can or should be left alone by themself for an unknown amount of time unless it’s important; I can barely even sleep for too long with him around.

How it works is I basically can’t sleep or leave or do much for most of the day til my sister returns at night. And I still have to watch over them then too. it’s also early in the morning, and she goes to work soon when I’m typing this. (This began at 3AM)

I did tell her if this is the case, since it happened on her watch she may have to take and pay for everything this time. But obviously she has work and isn’t particularly rich either.

Ntm many a time me and most owners here face the same dilemma, of our pooches getting into new amounts of trouble and don’t know how good or bad something is so we panic and fly off the handle over it and just send them to the vet over every little thing.

TL;DR dog got into a fight and hurt his eye with no signs of immediate physical signs of serious damage or behavioral change beyond frequent blinking that may just be a result of the ointment in his eye.

With no money or time to take him to the vet due to caring for a sick person who needs round the clock care.

So in the event he’s not going to the vet immediately due to no signs of serious damage or change in behavior, what exactly should we be looking for as non-vets to determine how bad this situation truly is.

And what are some things we should look into doing to treat him on our own if anything? I don’t even know if a place IS open this early where we liveg

Obviously if it’s a stage 10 and he just has 10 hours left to live; I’ll try To move heaven and earth to get him seen as soon as possible.

pic refs https://imgur.com/a/4t0oLcO