chronic mild conjunctivitis - Page 1

my 13 month old gsd female always had red eyes,  when she was young

i was able to treat her.  she went through 2 rounds of antibiotics and in between

treatments went 3-4 months and was fine.  now she's older i cannot get near

her with eye drops.  the most i can do is put warm face cloths over her eyes.  i have noticed

she never seems to really close her eyes completely when she sleep.  theres always a little slit i sometimes

put my hand over them to close them.  could it be that??

There are a couple of things that need to done. One thing is that she needs to be properly treated if there is an infection. I've always used the eye ointment rather than drops. For one thing it's only twice a day rather than frequent drops. I wash my hands well than squeeze a little on my finger, my dogs are used to me petting and rubbing them about the face, I just place the ointment in the corner of the eye. Remember to wash your hands carefully after also, an infection could be easily be passed to your eyes. Second, is this really an eye infection or allergies? Are they  just red or are they also weepy with gook? If they are just red with no discharge it's probably allergies. When my dog returned from a boarding kennel with pink-eye is was quite obvious; she was also rubbing them with her paw or along the rug.

She might have a condition called distichiasis where there are "stray" eyelashes on the eyelid rims that irritate the cornea. Having had a dog with a corneal ulcer, I'd definitely suggest you have her examined by a veterinary opthalmologist as continued trauma to her eye can cause all sorts of longterm problems including corneal ulcers, not fun to get healed. It is not normal for a dog to have chronic conjunctivitis and there has to be an underlying cause, the stray eyelashes are just one and allergies could be another, different treatments for both and dogs are prone to a number of other eye diseases that could be the problem. Best to let an expert take a look I think. It also bothers me than she cannot seem to close her eyes completely and that could allow the eyes to dry out. Actually pretty common in breeds like Pekes and Pugs and other breeds with buldging eyes. Good luck.