Hi Coton’s Mom. I had an awful time with tear staining and rusty gunk coming out of all three of my dogs. Had all three to the vet who found nothing wrong with their eyes. The staining, etc. continued. I then took them to an animal opthamologist just to make sure my dogs vet hadn’t missed anything. Her diagnosis with the same. All healthy, no blockage, no bacteria. Both insisted that it had to be something they were ingesting (Food, Water?). My home has a whole house water filtration system. I followed someone’s suggestion (at this point I don’t remember who it was) and bought spring water using a reverse osmosis system. I then followed other suggestions of trying distilled water. I tried that. All to no avail. I was feeding my dogs a grain, rice, soy, corn, white potato, poultry free 5 star kibble. What turned everything around was when I was finally at my wits end and transitioned my dogs to commercial raw food. (Some day I’ll take on the task of following some of HDM’s recipes, too scared to do it wrong for now). That was approx. 3 months ago. All three dogs have stopped with the rusty colored eye debris. Of course there is some staining left (my dogs are all long haired breeds) but not near the eyes. Only on the hair that will need to grow out completely. If you’re a little concerned about a raw diet for your dogs as I was, once you get into it you realize how much healthier they have become and realize that WOW, the staining was the least of the problems on kibble. My 14 year old Maltese, Hannah, was listless, never played any more, just slept most of the time and I just attributed it to her age. Well low and behold, she is now running around, playing with toys, barking at anyone and anything that goes past our windows, playing with the other dogs, her coat is really really shinny and growing quickly (as are the other two dogs) and might I add their teeth are getting whiter and whiter. It’s truly miraculous and especially coming from a 65 year old mom of three precious dogs who was raised with the notion that you only fed kibble and if you found one that sort of worked ok you kept them on it, no and ifs or buts. So you see I’ve done a complete 180 on nutrition and health. I wouldn’t eat MacDonald’s day in day out (as tasty as they may be) everyday or I would be incredibly deficient in most all nutrient. My husband and I eat fairly well. Why I didn’t think that my dogs needed to eat that way is truly beyond me. Hope any of this helps.
