Dog with Goopy Eyes? A Totally Natural Remedy!
I’ve been taking tracking lessons with my darling four-month-old Weimaraner puppy Wanda, working with Kathy Jo Magan, who is widely known as a tracking and Schutzhund trainer and competitor. Lucky for me, she leaves her Florida home base (where she also breeds Belgian Malinois and Corgis!) and spends her summers teaching and training near where I live in Vermont. Kathy Jo tells me Wanda (and her rescued big sister Weimaraner, Maisie) both have “exceptional abilities,” but maybe she tells that to all dog Moms?! So now it’s up to me to find the time to make the pans of chicken liver bait you have to set out in your practice tracks!
But I got a surprise bonus with health advice when I showed up with Wanda one morning, who had a bit of goop coming out of one eye. I asked Kathy Jo’s advice about whether I should stop at the vet on the way home and get antibiotic ointment, which I used to have on hand for when any of my dogs had discharge from their eyes. I was hoping for a different remedy, knowing that Kathy Jo has decades of experience with All Things Dog, and that she is firmly rooted in the holistic/acupuncture world of dog health. Sure enough, she cautioned me away from the routine use of medicated ointments for basic eye goop and said that all the holistic practitioners she knows depend on Halo’s herbal eye wash. I thought I must have mis-heard her. “’My Halo?!” I asked, thinking I was imagining that she was referring to the company I love for its philanthropy, that I blog for and whose kibble I feed to my dogs. “Yes, exactly,” she said. “I know you work with them. I thought you knew about their Cloud Nine Herbal Eye Wash? Everybody I know in the holistic world swears by it.” I was amazed and delighted — I knew that Halo had an all-natural eye wash, but I had no experience with it. I couldn’t wait to try it!
By the second day, the discharge that seemed to have increased in both eyes had begun to resolve, and the time I was on the #2 drops, both eyes were totally clean in the morning. The directions also mentioned that after a few days the dog might swallow after the drops were applied, indicating that the tear ducts were open and flowing properly: sure enough, Wanda did just that.
My sister was visiting during this time with her two Brussels Griffons (both of whom eat Halo Small Breed kibble with all the human food that gets slipped to them!) and the littlest one, Sprout, had the regular occurrence of discharge from her eyes because of the smushed in (brachycephalic) face of the breed as well as all the hair around their eyes. Little Sprout started on drops #1 as Wanda graduated to drops #2, and it was a race to the finish line to see which would have healthier eyes sooner.
I will say that one thing you should teach a puppy or any dog to get used to is having ear drops and eye drops or ointment applied. You do it with the usual de-sensitization and positive association of getting used to being held still and then accepting having a dropper come towards your eye or ear and get a treat for being calm. Optimally you should practice this periodically so that when you need to restrain your dog to apply drops, they will not panic or resist but submit and wait for the treat as a reward.
—Tracie Hotchner
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photo credit: China’s eyes via photopin (license)