Eye Problems
Eye infections are usually easy to treat, but they can cause blindness if they aren't treated quickly and correctly. You can make a good guess about what is causing the infection by looking to see if one or both eyes are infected. If just one eye is swollen or has a green or yellow discharge, it is probably a result of an injury from a poke with a stick, romping around with another pet, or even a tiny embedded grass seed.
Eye infectons are very painful to the dog, and your pet will most likely struggle when you try to clean and treat them. This is a problem because holding them still- especially by the neck, increases pressure within the eye itself. In an eye that's infected, the additional pressure could damage its internal structures. Before treating the eye, you may want to get some help if your pet is difficult to hold.
Since eye infections are accompanied by a discharge, you'll need to wash it off. Start by holding a warm, damp washcloth over the eye to loosen the crust. Once it has softened, you can wipe it away fairly easily. You may have to repeat the soaking several times to clean the area around the eyes throroughly.
Flush the eyes with a sterile saline contact lense solution. Hold your pets eye open and bath the surface of the eye gently. This will wash away any debris and also ease the pain. Eye infections can take 2 weeks or longer to clear up entirely. In the meantime, the eye will be irritated and sore. Washing the eye daily to remove the crust and rinse the surface of the eye will help to reduce the pain and help the infection heal quicker.
If you don't notice the eye condition improving within the first couple days, or if it appears to get worse at any time, get your dog to the vet. The dog may require an antibiotic ointment for the eye.