Care Guides

Could you say, right now, whether the gunk in the corner of your dog's eye this morning is normal or the start of something that needs a vet? Most owners cannot, and that is no failing. The difference between ordinary overnight crust and an early corneal ulcer is not obvious unless somebody has shown you, and eyes are the one part of a pet where a day of waiting changes the outcome.

Normal first, so you have a baseline. A small amount of greyish or reddish-brown crust in the inner corner overnight is dried tears and shed cells. It should be roughly equal on both sides, wipe away easily, and the eye underneath should be wide open, clear and white. Healthy eyes do not squint, and the pet does not paw at its face.

The daily routine takes about thirty seconds. Damp a cotton pad with cooled boiled water or sterile saline, hold it against the crust for a couple of seconds to soften rather than scraping, and wipe outwards, away from the eye. Fresh pad for the second eye. Then, the bit people skip, dry the fur underneath. The real benefit is that you are looking closely at both eyes daily, so a change registers immediately.

Tear staining is the cosmetic problem everyone asks about. Those rust-coloured tracks from the inner corners are porphyrins, iron-containing pigments in tears that oxidise to reddish brown in air and light. They show up dramatically on white coats and are invisible on dark ones, which is why the maltese owner worries and the labrador owner does not. The pigment is harmless. What it tells you is that the face is permanently wet, and wet fur is where the real problem sits.

So ask why the face is wet before you attack the colour. Flat-faced dogs and cats have shallow eye sockets and short noses, so tears spill over the lid rather than draining away. Some animals have a duct that is blocked or never formed properly. Hair from a nasal fold or an eyelid can rub the surface of the eye and drive constant watering, and in some dogs an eyelid rolls slightly inwards. Allergies, dust, teething puppies and low-grade infections all raise tear production. If staining appears suddenly in an adult, that is not a grooming question, it is a vet question.

Once a cause has been ruled out, keeping the area dry is the whole treatment. Wipe morning and evening, dry thoroughly each time, and keep the hair short near the inner corners so tears are not wicked down the face. Ask your groomer to do the face rather than attempting it with kitchen scissors; if you must trim, use blunt-nosed scissors, point them away from the eye and rest a comb between the blades and the skin. A brown, yeasty smell in that damp fur means the skin is infected rather than merely stained, and that needs treating.

Now the things that should never go near an eye, because the internet is full of them. No hydrogen peroxide. No bicarbonate of soda, vinegar, lemon juice, corn syrup, makeup remover, tea tree oil or boric acid powder. Nothing abrasive, and nothing you would not put in your own eye. Be wary too of tear stain products sold online containing antibiotics, usually tylosin; dosing an animal indefinitely for a cosmetic stain is a bad idea, and they are not legitimately sold for it in many countries. If it goes near the eye, it came from your vet.

Folds are the other half of face care and the rule is identical: clean, then dry. Bulldogs, frenchies, pugs and pekingese have skin that folds over itself, and the inside of a fold is warm, dark and damp, which is exactly what yeast wants. Run a damp, unscented wipe right into each crease, then go back with something dry. Every day for a deep-folded dog. Do not pack the fold with talc or cornflour, which cakes into a paste. Red, sore, smelly folds mean fold dermatitis and a vet rather than more wiping, and the same goes for the tail fold on a screw-tailed breed.

Cats earn their own paragraph. Flat-faced cats stain down the nose for the same anatomical reasons and the routine is the same, done with more diplomacy and more treats. But a cat with weepy eyes, sneezing and a gummy discharge is usually having a flare of feline herpesvirus, which most cats carry and which resurfaces at stressful times. Mild flares settle. A cat that is squinting, off its food, or has discharge that has turned thick and coloured needs seeing, because herpes causes corneal ulcers.

Here are the signs that mean today, not next week. Squinting or holding an eye partly closed. Pawing at the face or dragging it along the carpet. Green or yellow discharge. A sudden change in how much or what sort. Redness of the white, cloudiness, a blue haze, or any visible spot on the surface. One eye looking bigger or different from the other. Pupils that do not match. The third eyelid up across the eye. Blood. Bumping into things. All of those earn a same-day call, and a painful eye in a flat-faced dog is a genuine emergency, because an ulcer in a breed whose lids do not fully close can deteriorate alarmingly fast.

Two last cautions. Never reach for a leftover eye drop from a previous problem, particularly one containing a steroid: if an ulcer is present, a steroid can make the cornea deteriorate rapidly, and you cannot know without a stain test. And if anything chemical splashes into an eye, flush with sterile saline or clean lukewarm water for several minutes and phone the vet while you do it.

Thirty seconds a day with a damp pad and a dry one is not much of a routine. What it buys is an owner who notices on Tuesday that something is not quite right, rather than on Friday when it has become an emergency.