Whether your dog has big, brown eyes or tiny blue ones, it is important to keep them clean. This is a task that should be done carefully though, since his eyes are just as sensitive as yours, and he has to be able to see to look out for you.
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Is it Dirt or an Infection?
If you’re particularly concerned about cleaning your dog’s eyes, there is probably a good amount of discharge in or around them. The first thing you should do is ensure that this “gunk” inside them is not caused by a medical problem. While it’s true that many dogs simply have excessive eye discharge, it can also be a sign of something more serious.
A few telltale signs that your dog has an eye infection or other serious disorders are if the eyes display:
- Redness
- Cloudiness
- Inflammation
If any of these symptoms are present, or you notice any bleeding in the eye, see your veterinarian as soon as possible – and do not attempt to clean your dog’s eyes yourself until your vet gives you a proper treatment plan.
Cleaning Tear Stains on Light Fur
If your dog’s fur is white or very light blonde, he may be susceptible to tear stains, which occur when a build-up of water from the eyes discolors the fur beneath them to a brown or red tint. This is common in many toy breeds, including poodles, cocker spaniels and shih tzus.
These breeds are susceptible to excessive eye-watering due to the fact that their coarse hair often irritates their eyes. It’s important to remove these spots as soon as possible because they can be a breeding ground for bacteria if they remain damp for too long.
In order to remove tear stains, you can use a mixture of equal parts corn starch and peroxide. Mix them together into a fine powder and apply the solution to your dog’s fur. (Make sure that this solution does not make contact with your dog’s eyes! You do not want to irritate them further.) If you’re not comfortable using peroxide on your dog’s face, you can try a mixture of boric acid powder and cornstarch instead, but be careful to avoid the eyes with this mixture as well. Let the mixture dry for at least a couple hours and then rinse it thoroughly with lukewarm water.
Once you’ve removed your dog’s tear stains, you should focus on prevention. There are many products available that you can add to your pet’s food to prevent the formation of tear stains in the future. You can consult your vet for information about products specific to your dog’s needs.
Muck Removal
If your dog doesn’t have tear stains, just run of the mill muck in his eyes, you should be able to clean them by gently wiping the edge of the eye with a clean cloth or tissue. Remember to wipe around the eye, never directly on the eye’s surface. You can also buy eye wipes made specifically for dogs, but these are usually not necessary.
However, if there is dirt or debris directly inside your dog’s eye and not just in the corners, you will need to flush it out with an eyewash. Don’t go up to the bathroom and grab the Visine; be sure to consider your dog’s safety and comfort by purchasing an eyewash just for him. Canine-friendly solutions, such as EyeClens are available at most any pet supply store. They may also be found at your vet’s office.
To use the eye wash, put the bottle near, but not in, your dog’s eye and squeeze the bottle gently. Be sure that the bottle is angled downward, so that gravity will assist you in flushing out the debris. Give your dog a treat afterwards, as this can be quite stressful for him.
Keeping Your Dog’s Eyes Clean
If your pet has tear stains, he will require ongoing treatment. However, if you just need to keep your dog’s eyes free from gunk, there are several ways to reduce the risk of eye irritation:
- Keep your pet away when you are mowing the lawn, dusting or doing other activities that cause an excessive amount of debris or particles in the air.
- Don’t let your dog hang his head out the car window. Sure it looks like fun, but the wind can carry objects that could cause serious infection or damage.
- Secure all household chemicals where your dog will not be exposed to them, such as on a high shelf or in a cabinet, and keep your dog outside when you are using toxic cleaners, such as bleach and ammonia.
- Trim your pet’s fur if it is getting into his eyes regularly. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, seek the assistance of a professional groomer.
Eye-cleaning is a fairly simple process and there is no set schedule of how often it should be preformed. Just keep on eye on your pet and his behavior and sit him down for an eye-cleaning on an as-needed basis.
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We have a New 3 year old German Shepard and cleaning the light color fur with your solution. Did the Job. Thank you!
I was going nuts trying to think of what to use without hurting my pup, I didn’t know they sold special wipes!
How long does the cornstarch/peroxide solution have to stay there? My dog started scratching her face after a few hours so I took it off. Didn’t seem to do much. Maybe I had the consistency wrong?
Our dog has had an ongoing what we think is a bacterial eye infection, but what the vet calls chronic dry eye and lack of tear production. She has had tear production testing and staining for ulcers. Came up neg. for ulcers and is at 0 production on tear ducts. We have been to the vet five times, cont. to repeat treatment that isn’t working and vet believes it is chronic and she will have it forever. Her eye is inflamed, clouded over and filled with mucous daily. She has taken cyclosporine, tacrolimus, art. tears, and some misc. things with no more than short term (3-4 days at most). Any natural suggestions – colloidal silver, eye flushing solutions or anything that might give her relief?
What if the “muck” sticks to their fur, and these solutions didn’t quite get all of it off since it is sticking to their fur really close to their eyes.
Emily,
Try putting a TINY bit of hair conditioner on your finger and then dab onto the stubborn gunk. Give the conditioner a minute to soften the gunk and then massage the gunk gently with your finger to help loosen it from the hair and skin. Give it another minute to do it’s work. Then, approach the area very gently with a fine–tooth plastic comb. It should come right out. Keep in mind, the conditioner has oil in it. When it settles into the warmth of your dog’s skin, it will probably travel to the eyes – so you owe it to your dog to remove every trace.
Next, use a dry facial tissue and pat the treated area to remove any residual conditioner around the dog’s eye. Then apply a TINY bit of a mild/soap-free/tear-free cleanser to a paper towel dampened with warm water. Gently apply to the treated area and work it in with your fingers. Use additional warm and wet paper towels to remove the cleanser. Finish up with a dry one and provide an immediate treat. I have been doing this routine for years with “Fluffy Puppy” shampoo. Any oatmeal conditioner formulated for pets is fine for use around the tender eye area. Bio-Groom makes one and so does John Paul Pet (Paul Mitchell). Let us know how it worked for you!
How do you get big, brown, gunk out of the corner of their eyes?
OMG!!! Thanks so much; I have a three-month-old Matipoo and she is white, so her eyes get REALLY dirty!!!
Hey everyone. I have a three-year-old shih tzu who likes to play in the dirt, and he gets excessive amounts of dirt in and around (but I’m more concerned about the dirt in) his eyes, to the point that it just covers his eyeballs and I’m cleaning and flushing them constantly. Now, he is very rambunctious, so keeping him from doing almost anything that he wants is almost completely out of the question. There’s really no way to keep him from digging unless I keep him inside all the time, which I could not do to my baby. It is to the point, though, where I am wondering if this excessive amount of dirt could cause infection, because it does make his eyes very red, and they stay red for about 2 hours after I clean them. Up until this point, just cleaning them has worked. I just want to know if infection is something I should be keeping a closer eye on or something I should be more concerned about, or if I just clean his eyes constantly, he should be okay. Can large amounts of dirt in the eyes cause infection?
I just bought a shih tzu, and I think I’m just going to buy the wipes and use them when I need to. I learned this breed can be prone to cysts in the eyes.
What kind of wipes can I use on my 20 year old shih tzu, and how do you use it? Please let me know!
A friend of mine puts a drop of apple cider vinegar in her dogs water and she has never had a problem with gunk in her pup’s eye. I just started doing it to my new Tea Cup Poodle, hope it works for us too.
I have a 1 1/2 year old chihuahua that is tan, and I have tried cornstarch and peroxide, but I still can’t get the gunk from his eyes. What else can I try? It looks nasty, like he is not taken care of. Makes him look old! Please help; home remedies!
Chel,
The cornstarch and peroxide is used to kill bacteria and lighten the hair. Use a soft cloth to wipe your dog’s eyes with warm water. For a ball or mat of gunk, soak the cloth and hold the cloth on the gunk ball (repeat to add more water if needed) until it softens. You could use peroxide while doing this, just again, be careful not to get it in your dog’s eye as it will be painful for your pet. If warm water or peroxide is not working to soften the gunk (so that you can scrape it off the fur), you could try white vinegar (also painful if it gets in the eye; you could dilute it for feisty pets, but still try to avoid getting it in the eye). Resting a washcloth soaked with warm water on your dog’s eye like a compress could also accomplish the task of softening the gunk.
Rub the gunky fur between your fingers with a gentle soap and water and use your nails to pull/scrape the gunk off the hairs.
Once the gunk is removed, then use the cornstarch and peroxide paste to disinfect and dye the fur.
You could also try letting vinegar dry on the stains and taking your dog out to play in the sun to bleach the fur, similarly as people do with lemon juice (lemons are toxic to dogs).
A great home remedy for eye care is to make a saline solution (eyewash) by sterilizing a glass or jar with boiling water and adding non-iodized salt to distilled water.
Adding vinegar to your dog’s drinking water occasionally could help change the pH of your dog’s tears and therefore prevent staining.
Source: eHow – How to Make a Dog Eyewash Remedy
Source: wikiHow – How to Prevent Tear Staining in Dogs
Source: Dog Health Handbook – Dog Eye Wash
We have an 11-year-old Portuguese water dog. He has heavy eye discharge. The vet gave us an eye wash plus antibiotic for him. As soon as we use this, he rubs his entire face, eyes included, on the carpet, thus making the problem worse. I think he has actually gotten rug burn by doing this. Any ideas?
Barry,
First, call your vet to see if this is a common reaction to the eye wash. There are several possible causes; your dog could be allergic to something in the eye wash (since you mentioned that it contains antibiotics rather than just being a plain saline solution), or your dog might not like the feeling of the medicine as it works (it might be itchy – imagine a drop of peroxide on a fresh blood stain happening at a microscopic level on your dog’s eye). It’s also possible, though unlikely since the itching is so intense, that he doesn’t like the smell of the medicine or the smell as it reacts with his tears. Ask your vet if you need/could use an oral antibiotic instead, as heavy discharge might indicate an infection, and then use a plain eye wash for cleaning.
You could also conduct an experiment; make a plain eye wash with only non-iodized salt and water, and see if your dog has the same reaction. If he reacts the same, it is the feeling that he dislikes (as opposed to an allergy or smell). For that, try slowly wiping a soft cloth over your dog’s face after each eye wash to essentially scratch the itch for him and give him time to calm down to a point where he might not be as excited to itch when you release him. It’s also possible that your dog is itching so intensely simply due to the excitement of the experience (intense-excitement rather than intense-itching), so this will be a good way to rule that out too.
Give him a treat or treat dispenser toy immediately afterwards to distract him from itching or give him a thorough back-scratch to draw the attention to a different part of his body. Also, make sure that when you finish the eye wash, there aren’t any hairs sticking into his eye or nose that could be provoking an itch.
Another idea: cover the carpet with a soft, lint-free blanket for your dog to use instead of the stiff carpet fibers. You could also put your dog in a carpet-free room (bathroom) with the blanket after the eye wash, however I recommend that you stay in the bathroom as well or give him treats so that it does not seem like a punishment.
Source: PetDIYs.com – Treat Dispenser
I need help! I used the tear stain remover on my puppy and my puppy moved suddenly and the tear stain remover got inside his eye! What should I do now? Now, one eye can open and the other eye can’t open! Help please, immediately!
I have a poodle who is about nine years old. The gunk around hie eyes is really bad. Tee bites the groomer and now, I can’t have him groomed. I can’t even clean the gunk. What do I do, and how do I get Tee calm enough to do his eyes? Tee will let me wash his face in the shower, but I can’t get close enough to even trim his hair. Any suggestions?
I have a white shih tzu. Our vet suggested mixing a solution of half vinegar and half filtered water and wiping around the eye regularly with a saturated cotton ball, being careful not to get the solution or cotton in the eye. It lightens the stain and the vinegar fights bacteria.
My new little maltipoo pup has a lot of fur around her eyes and a lot of eye boogers, she also has a little bit of harder fur around her eyes. I was wondering what I should do, and if there is a special wipe I can buy. Also, I would want to know if this kind of breed will get tear stains. She is a really light brown, sort of a toffee color. I would like to know of a solution to use without hurting her… I know she doesn’t have an infection. Thank you a whole lot and please write back.