Should there be concern if a dog has a watery eye?   Some white dogs have marks on their face and owners say it is from their tear ducts.   Why is that?    Is there any concern with any other dogs be they puppies, adults or elderly?  Suppose I viewed a puppy and it had a watery eye is there a potential problem?

Eyes shouldn't water, but some breeds have a predisposition to abnormally-shaped tear ducts, and so the tears overflow and stain the face. It can also be a symptom of entropion.

Had a quick read on the symptoms of entropion.  I need to study the condition more fully.  Thanks for your reply.

I wouldn't even consider a puppy with watery eyes, to me it indicates a problem, whether it is entropion, narrow or blocked tear ducts, allergies or something else, it's not worth taking this on IMO

My toy breed often get watery eyes (I´ve had 5 as pets and had this problem with 3 of them).  However NONE showed any problem as a puppy.  My vet just said that it was wonky tear ducts and nothing can reasonably be done.

Ditto Honeymoonbeam.

Years ago I had Toy Poodles and some had the problem.  I have 16 Chihuahua Long Coats and 3 or 4 of them seem to have "overflowing" eyes.  All I ever use is warm water and cotton wool to wipe under the eye.

Most people with larger dogs just never see the problem.  A lot of the toy group appear to have stained eyes.  And yes, I've only ever seen it in adults.  I'm not sure how you could rule it out in a pup.   I've seen pups that grow up to have the problem when neither parent had it, so it isn't an easy one.

Developing later on is another topic but would you seriously pick a pup out to keep if it's eyes watered?

And yes, I've only ever seen it in adults.

In the Papillons it seems to be the other way around. I have 2 adults that got the runny eyes AS adults and kept them. (One, my first, was even investigated properly -ointments, drops, tearducts flushed -it's just how he is.) Everyone else started about 5 weeks (Papillon puppies always look awful in photos because of this -the stains from the eyes meet in the middle forming a cross in the white blaze), then eventually when the head breaks it vanishes and they are clear as adults.

My younger dog developed runny eyes with staining at around 6-8 months.  After a couple of weeks wiping with water and cotton wool twice a day, I had his tear ducts flushed and, since they were narrow, they were stretched and he had drops for a fortnight. Since then they have been, he's 2 now.

If he'd shown the problem when I was choosing from the litter, he possibly wouldn't have been my choice.

With my Bedlingtons, they seem to develop watery eyes at around 16 weeks,  whilst they're teething.    All of them have been fine by the time the last teeth are finished coming through and never get it again.   i just wipe with warm saline, and put a smear of vaseline under the eyes to prevent soreness.

I do think that it very much depends on the reason for the eyes watering.

A young pup with watery eyes?

Think I'd pass,  too many things could be causing it at the age, but unlikely to be just because of teething ;-)

A young pup with watery eyes?

Think I'd pass,  too many things could be causing it at the age, but unlikely to be just because of teething ;-)

Ah but if everyone reasoned like that, nobody would ever buy a Papillon puppy. Breed specific again.

Watery eyes can accompany ear infection.  It might even show up before you notice the ear problem but with my adult dog it happened after.  Or at least I noticed it after.  Any time there is a change it's worth an investigation by your Vet and for me that applies a doubly when it's eyes.  Harder when it's a dog or pup you've never seen before.

This is an interesting thread!  Willow - my 15 month old collie - has had watery eyes from the start, and the tear staining on the white side of her face is very obvious at times.  But the tearing isn't constant, it can come and go within the same day.

No other symptoms aside from liking me to rub her face sometimes but that's not constant either.  Thoughts anyone (sorry, not wanting to hijack the thread but I got no replies in Health :-P)?

I would be asking the vet to look at ingrowing lashes.  They can be devilishly difficult to see, but can cause irritation and tearing.   I've seen it in a Shetland Sheepdog, took the vet ages to diagnose, as the lashes were tiny and growing on the inside of the eyelid!   He did the op, and the dog was cured :-)

Strangely, it can also be a sign of [url=http://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision-problems/glossary-of-eye-and-vision-conditions/dry-eye?sso=y]dry eyes!/url]

So it might be worth getting checked out ;-)

nobody would ever buy a Papillon puppy. Breed specific again.

Marrianne,

I would hope that the breed club would make me aware of things like this and the reasons, before I got to the stage of negotiating breeders?     :-)

It's a pretty important bit of information :-)

But yes, definitely breed specific :-)

>would you seriously pick a pup out to keep if it's eyes watered?

??????  No, I didn't even hint that I would, so puzzled.  I have a breed known for a problem with the tear ducts. And I've never seen it in a pup as I stated in my post.  Toy breeds are affected, not the breeds that you have.

That was a bit blunt of me Jean sorry,I was taking the thread back on topic to the original poster who asked about watery eyes in a puppy. If things develop and we will never know of they will that's a risk with any dog.

I think I'm just trying to get across a puppy with watery eyes is generally a sickly puppy and as such in the main any buyer needs to avoid it.
I know Marianne has mentioned that Paps have watery eyes as pups, which I'd never heard of however I do wonder aside from this breed if anyone would seriously consider a puppy which was streaming from the eyes, possibly the only way would be to have a 100% guarantee from a canine ophthalmologist that there was nothing wrong with it,but even then for me it could lean itself to allergies...

The above posts make interesting reading showing that a watery eye could have many reasons and that the watering is of different amounts and whether it affects one eye or both.  I took in an elderly rescue sheltie and that had ingrowing eyelashes but she was too old to operate on.  The dog I originally asked about also had dirty ears.  When they were cleaned only one still had excess wax.   Watery eye on right, dirty ear on left.  I imagine teething?

Just a bit off topic Sue.  I have my Chi's eye tested even though I don't have to.  And I didn't know about Paps until I saw Marianne's post.