I have a new puppy at club which I am informed by the owners is a very healthy bichon poodle cross, we do a lot of practice with the young pups to allow them to be gone over. This puppy I noticed has very wet eyes and her face is almost completely brown with tear staining, I was not happy with the eyes of this pup either. Can anyone tell me if either breed has a problem I should be aware of so I can suggest to the owners that they should get the dog checked out by a specialist vet? Their own vet thinks this wet face from the tear staining is OK.

ps for a bichon poodle cross it has not got a woolly coat the hair appears to be straight at the moment, and I thought it might be a shih tzu poodle cross..

IMO no dog whatever breed or non breed should have excessive watering eyes and it would see than it would have a problem either with eyelashes or tear ducts that should be attended to.

Bichons are certainly prone to tear staining and I know I've groomed shih tzus that have such bad deposits that the skin starts to get infected, terrible. This sounds quite excessive though but I guess if the vet has checked for ingrown eyelashes etc there's not much they can do except wipe the area clean 2 or 3 times a day, or buy some of the various products that claim to help. I know my older bitch had bad staining as a puppy but once she was done teeth and her head had matured it improved, it had pretty much stopped by a year or so old. My puppy has quite bad staining too now so hopefully she will grow out of it too.

My rott has quite runny eyes which were worse when he was a pup and the vet told me there is nothing wrong, no entropian or infections but it is down to the shape of his head that has an impact on the secretions from the tear ducts.  Using that logic could it be that crossing a long faced poode with a shorted faced bichon could lead to similar problems?

Thanks everyone for your help. I will tell them to keep an eye on the wet areas and to watch for infections. I might get Peter Bedford to look at when he come to Haddenham in February.

Of course it could be that the tearducts are absent or too small for the rate of flow.

Could  be the tearducts.  Smearing some vaseline on the fur underneath might help whilst the pup is teething etc. and hopefully then it won't be as much.

Toy poodles are prone to tear stains, and need to have under the eye cleaned.  Over the years I tried all sorts and never found a miracle clean up cure.

Eventually changed to warm water and cotton wool.  I lost my last Toy Poodle over 18 months ago, and this is the first time I've been without one in well over 30 years.  But I never owned one that didn't need its eyes cleaning.

Same with our JS, some just have too small a tear duct, its something were trying to breed away from by selecting ones with no staining but in such a tiny gene pool its quite difficult. To try and minimise it ive found what works best and doesnt cost anythink is wiping with cooled boiled water and then drying a few times a day. some people say to put vinigar in their water as it changes their PH balance and stops the red yeast from thriving but there is no way my dogs would touch the water so couldnt say if this worked, also sometimes clipping the hair very carefully can remove any irritant thats making it worse.

Bichons are notorious for tear staining and those who show them have to constantly clean and protect the area.At most Bichon shows there are stalls selling paste and potions to help.

Consequently when you see one in the hands of someone not quite so vigilant they are often grossly stained.

One look at rescue sites will show that most Bichon/bichon crosses have brown faces.