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Worried about your dog’s red or discharging eye? This guide covers how to identify potential dog eye infections and when to seek veterinary help. Learn about common signs like pawing, discharge, cloudiness, and squinting. While home remedies like saline eye drops, cold compresses, and artificial tears can offer temporary relief, they don’t treat the underlying cause. This article emphasizes the importance of consulting a vet for proper diagnosis and treatment with antibiotics or other medications. Prevention tips include keeping your dog’s eyes clean and avoiding contact with infected dogs. Prompt veterinary care is crucial to prevent serious complications like vision loss.
How to Treat Dogs Eye Infection? – Common Signs that Indicate Eye Infection
Most eye infections tend to cause irritation and discomfort, so your dog is pawing its eye more than usual. Some green mucus discharge is also a clear indicator of an eye infection.
It is best to have your vet look at your dog’s eye. Eye infections like conjunctivitis can range from mild to severe. Some other common symptoms are cloudiness in the eye, squinting, a swollen eye, or reluctance to let you touch the area around the eye.
It is impossible to treat an eye infection without the appropriate treatment properly. Using home remedies to speed up healing and medicated eye treatment will give you the best outcome.
Simple Cures to Treat Eye Infection in Dogs
Depending on his diagnosis, your vet may treat your dog’s eye condition with antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, antihistamines, or other medications.
Here are some safe and effective measures you can adopt at home while waiting for your vet’s appointment.
Saline Eye Drops
Saline eye drops can flush out any irritants from your dog’s eye. These drops will not hurt and temporarily relieve your dog’s inflamed eye.
Saline eye drops can be purchased online, from a pharmacy, or pet store. These eye drops are not to be confused with contact lens rinsing solutions. Lens solutions have other substances and should never be used for a dog’s infected eye.
E-Collar
Putting an e-collar may not directly treat an eye infection. However, it will prevent any further damage to the eye. Dogs with itchy eyes have a tendency to rub their eye with a paw on their face or even scratch them, which can irritate them further.
An e-collar can prevent any such occurrences. E-collars should be big enough to prevent your dog from scratching its eye or rubbing it on the floor or furniture.
It’s easy to buy one online, from pet stores, or even from your vet. When put around your dog’s neck like a lampshade, it should reach two inches past your dog’s nose.
Cold Compress
A cold compress can provide adequate relief from inflammation. Dogs nursing a red, itchy eye can use a cold, wet washcloth. Applying a cold compress to your dog’s eyes is the easiest way.
Soft, cold compresses can be purchased online or from pharmacies. To decrease swelling and inflammation of the eye, you can apply a cold compress for several minutes several times a day. A cold compress may not treat the eye condition itself, but it will soothe your dog’s eye and make it feel more comfortable.
Artificial Tears
Compared to saline eye drops, artificial tears have a lubricant that can ease your dog’s eyes. If you find your dog’s eyes dry and irritated, artificial tears will add moisture. This will also not treat the infection but will ease and soothe your dog’s eye.
Rooibos Tea
It can be very effective even when clearing up an eye infection. Brew some tea, wait for it to cool, and then apply it to the infected eye using a cotton wool swab. Other herbal washes have also been effective in treating eye infections in dogs.
Warm Compresses
These will also help in easing an eye infection in your dog. It would help to place a damp, warm towel over your dog’s infected eye for several minutes, about twice daily twice daily. This will be very effective in removing the swelling and the pain, along with medicated eye drops or sterile saline prescribed by your vet.
The vet may also prescribe anti-inflammatories for your dog, as eye infections can be excruciating. See the veterinarian for another check-up if the eye is still not improving in three days.
How to Flush and Treat Your Dog’s Eyes?
Flushing the eye is relatively simple. Take a pipette of sterile saline, and open your dog’s eye with the finger and thumb from one hand. Very gently place one drop of the solution inside the eye.
Do not place the drop on the area of trauma. Repeat this procedure several times a day. You will need someone to help hold your dog, as they tend to back away when you approach them with eye drops.
In case you don’t have someone to assist you, make your dog sit, kneel behind them, lift their chin, and gently allow the eye drops to enter your dog’s eye.
Other than medicated or saline eye drops, using any substance directly in your dog’s eye is not advisable. It is unnecessary to flush your dog’s eyes for most kinds of infections.
How to Prevent Eye Infections in Dogs?
Eye infections are undoubtedly superficial to prevent. They can occur out of the blue. However, there are specific ways in which you can help improve the health of your dog’s eyes.
- Do not let your dog interact or play with other dogs with eye infections. This is one way of preventing your dog from contracting the disease.
- Always keep your dog’s eyes clean by wiping them daily. This is very important if your dog has a habit of digging in the sand or swimming in dirty water.
- Improve your dog’s eye health by feeding a healthy, well-balanced diet of antioxidants like Vitamin E.
- Treat any underlying eye conditions, including corneal ulcers, dry eye, eyelid abnormalities, and eyelash abnormalities. These conditions can cause pain, runny eyes, watery discharge, and mucus.
Preventions to Take to Prevent Eye Infection Spread
Some infections can be passed on from animals to humans, so ensure you wash your hands well after attending to your dog’s eye condition.
Dispose of any material used to clean your dog’s eye. Also, remember not to use the same cotton swab on both eyes because it will lead to infection in the other eye.
When should you take your dog to a vet due to eye infections?
All kinds of eye infections require a trip to the vet. This is because it takes work. After all, it is generally difficult to distinguish between an eye infection and eye trauma.
Eye trauma can end up becoming a severe condition. During weekends or after hours, if your dog is not showing severe symptoms, home remedies can treat your dog’s eye condition. Also, if the eye condition has not improved in three days, this calls for another vet visit.
Some infections, such as conjunctivitis, can take several weeks to clear up. Others can take days to weeks.
You must give your precious pup the right kind of treatment at the right time because eye infections, when left untreated, can have severe effects on your dog’s eye.
It can cause your dog to lose vision or, even worse, its eye.
If home remedies do not work instantly, you must contact your vet if you see blood, pus, or anything that seems abnormal.
