Getting Rid of Dog Tear Stains

When we first rescued Baxter, he had really bad tear stains. They were very dark and looked like they were stuck on his face for good. We didn't want to use Angels Eyes, because we felt weird making him ingest something for what seemed like an external problem.

We tried topical tear stain removers, but the problem is that you have to take the time to put it on regularly, a couple times a day I think. We just didn't do it often enough to make it work. We were good for a few days, but we couldn't stick with it.

It took a while, but we did figure out the problem eventually. We researched online and asked our vet, concluding that the cause of Baxter's tear stains was diet. Baxter's digestive health when we got him was very poor, and it took us a long time to find the right food. We finally settled on Iams Low-Residue, as it was the only thing that Bax could digest correctly.

... before

... after!

For some breeds, such as Maltese, Bichon Frise, Lhasa Apso and Shih Tzu, tear stains can be a consistent problem. The topical products like PETCO's tear stain remover seem to work well when it's not a symptom of something more.

For little Baxter, the stain removers treated the symptom, but we had to correct the dietary issue to fix the problem. After a couple weeks on his new diet, the tear stains were gone! (So was the diarrhea, but that's another story)