Great Home Remedy for Cat’s and Dog’s Eyes
I want to share with you a home remedy for dogs and cats that have crusted eyes, runny eyes, or appear to possibly have an eye infection. This method has worked for me on many occasions and is super simple and cheap.
Meet Gracie – the latest to receive this eye remedy:
Gracie is our 7yo Shepherd Mix. We rescued her as a pup and she truly thinks she’s a cat. She has lived with up to 24 cats at one time, since her adoption. She sleeps on the back of the couch, climbs in boxes (as you see above), sits on chairs as well as sleeps in chairs, sits on furniture in front of the window to look out the window, and if she thinks she can get away with it – she will get on the dining room table.
Gracie has allergies – just seasonal and not severe enough that I would want to treat her for by the vet. When her nose is runny, which only happens in the spring and fall, I simply ‘blow’ her nose. I need to do no more.
That said, Gracie loves to fish! Gracie watches the bobbers out in the water and when she sees you reel your line in she waits for the bobber to get close enough and then brings it up on to the shore…fish and all. If there is no fish on the end of the line – she leaves it for us to reel in.
Well, this past fishing season, Gracie decided that she could fish on her own. She decided frogs and tadpoles were going to be her catches. She does a great job at getting her ‘catches’ and at NOT injuring a one of them when she catches them (via mouth).
Since this was her first year of fishing on her own – that meant her head and face would get right into the water. I’m not quite sure how she managed to catch anything actually, but she really does quite well for herself. She pounces at them first and then dunks her head in the water to snag them (one would think they’d be long gone after her pouncing). Once she has them in her mouth, she brings them to shore and drops whatever she caught behind my chair about 6′ away from me. I praise her and then get her catches and release them back into the water. I will tell you, I am not fond of picking up frogs…some being rather big…eeewwwee.
After we had fished at this one spot a few times – Gracie’s eyes began to have a creamy white discharge come out of them. One eye was worse than the other and not something that we see even during allergy season. Take a look – it was hard to get a really good picture – she didn’t like us holding her snout down 🙁
Seeing this discharge meant to me that I needed to try the trusted home remedy that I had used in the past on baby kittens with crusted/closed eyes or eyes that appeared to have a cold in them with a runny discharge and other cats that we’ve had that have had with a discharge coming out of them.
That home remedy – a cup of black tea. ***Please – before you try this home remedy – check your fur baby’s eye and eye area to make sure that there isn’t an injury that should really be treated by a vet.***
- Steep a cup of BLACK tea (can use tea bags or loose leaf – you just don’t want the tea grounds in your cup of tea)
- Let it cool to a luke warm state
- Using a washcloth (or something soft) soak one spot of the cloth with the cooled black tea
- If the animal’s eyes are completely crusted – wipe the eyes gently with the tea soaked cloth to see if you can get them to open. If you can’t, that’s okay! Don’t force them to open. Simply repeat the process every 4-6 hours and eventually they will open to where you can get drops of the tea into the eyes.
- Ultimately, you’re aiming to get 5-6 drops of the steeped black tea into the animal’s eye
- Repeat this process several times a day – using a clean cloth each time.
- Continue doing this for 4-5 days
**It’s important to note that you should use a different area of the cloth you’re using each time you wipe an eye or dip it in the tea. You don’t want to re-infect the eye.
You should begin to see a huge improvement after 2-3 days and at the end of day 5, the eyes should be totally cleared up. ***Please – it’s important to note that if the eyes don’t clear up using this home remedy OR the eyes get worse, then you should seek the help of your Vet. ***
Using this home remedy, many times over, I’ve successfully cleared up many of my cat’s eyes and this time – Gracie’s – saving me a lot of money.
Do you have a home remedy for pets that you’ve had great success with? Please share it – I’d love to hear what has worked for you.
33 Responses to “Home Remedy for Dog and Cat’s Crusted, Runny, or Infected Eyes”
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Thanks for sharing this, good to know if this happens to my pooch. My dog loves cats also…
Wow, thank you so much for this information! I can’t believe how much I learn when I read these posts! It’s really appreciated.
You’re welcome Dawn. I’m glad you find them informative. If I only knew 20 yrs ago what I know now – I’d have save myself a lot of time and money.
very great information
great post!! more animals post please 🙂
Thanks Venus! Will do my best to bring you more 🙂
Who knew? I think you just saved a lot of people a ton of money. Hope they see this post. A couple of my remedies, most probably already know are: small cuts and abrasions on pets you can apply a small amount of Neosporin to the area for faster healing and prevention of infection just make sure they do not lick or eat the neosporin. For broken claw or if you cut the kwik when trimming the nails, you can just use cornstarch to stop the bleeding. It works the same as kwik stop. I find cornstarch costs less than the products made for that. If the bleeding does not stop than see your vet.
Hi Lisa! Thanks for your comment. I did know about the Neosporin, but I didn’t know about the cornstarch. I’ve never had the situation come up where I’ve needed to fix a claw, but surely will remember this trick now. I didn’t even know there was a product on the market for this either. Our dog – she won’t let me cut her nails despite my trying – I think when she was groomed at one time as a puppy – someone cut down too close. Another thing that we fight her to do – is brushing her. It’s odd b/c we started brushing her when she came to us at 8 weeks of age.
For cuts and abrasions you can also use a dash of turmeric powder or paste. It’s a natural antiseptic and it won’t matter if your cat or dog licks it up. It’s good to treat cuts on humans too.
Thank you for sharing that information. I hadn’t heard of turmeric for cuts – I will need to get some to keep on hand. I know that turmeric has many other uses as well…would certainly be worth taking advantage of all the spice has to offer.
i am going have to try this remedy on my Australian shepherd, his eyes are always gross runny, we think it’s because of allergies.
I hope this helps your furbaby 🙂
THAT’S AWESOME!! I will pass that on to my friends at the pound, they have that all the time with the cats!
I’m rooting that this will save them lots of money all while helping those beautiful creatures.
Such good information to know! My husband and I have two cats and we always feel better knowing how to deal with their health problems ahead of time. They have allergies, poor things 🙁
So glad you found this post helpful.
Just adopted a sweet kitty from the shelter that seems to have this issue with her eye. I’m going to try this, thank you for posting!
I do hope that it works as well for you as it did for us 🙂
I like this non toxic way to keep my pet healthy!
Exactly!
I’ve always wondered the best way to get rid of that! B/c I know it’s probably bothering them, but of course they can’t remove it themselves.
Glad you found the post then. Now you can take care of the issue yourself:)
My Shepherd and my lab have allergies and have the ” eye boogies” as I like to call them =) I will definitely try this method. Thanks for the post!
Glad you found this post. I’ve recently had to steep some tea for the dog and one of the cats. The tea remedy never fails me 🙂
My VET actually recommended that I try this, before using veterinary medicine. It worked for my cat and dog. I have tried rooibos tea and ordinary Ceylon tea and they both worked.
Thanks for sharing your experience Yvonne! I’m thrilled to hear that there’s a Vet that isn’t promoting the Big Pharma meds.
I have used purified hot water on a clean washrag held for 2 min on the eye after first clearing away discharge that has worked like your tips too
Lily my pit JRT mix woke up with her left eye crusty. I did notice last night it started over tearing and some boogies were forming. I’ve been told about this before but they told me to use green tea or chamomile. Is that correct or should I just stick to black tea?
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This is really interesting, never thought about using tea to help with the cleaning of the eyes . I will have to keep this in mind because I am always cleaning my cats eyes out , mostly during the harsh winter month.
@tisonlyme143
This is some great info. My mother-in-law has a cat who always has stuff in his eyes, so we will have to give this a try.
that’s good to know I have 9 cat’s and there shur to have a problem some day with there eyes.
We had a bulldog that would get bad eyes. We always watch our other bullies to be sure. Thank you for sharing this.