How to clean tear stains on a dog

The AKC's eye-care guidance names three safe liquids for this job: eye wipes your vet recommends, sterile saline, or tap water held at a rolling boil for at least a minute and then cooled. Use soft cotton pads or a clean, soft cloth, never a cotton swab. Add a fine-toothed steel comb for the hair at the corners and a dry cloth or paper towel for patting the fur dry afterward.

Pick a time when your dog is calm, such as after a walk, and a spot with good daylight, because you want to see the eye as well as the stain. A small dog is easiest on your lap or on a towel on a table, a larger one sitting in front of you. Keep a few small treats in reach. Once a dog learns that the routine ends in a treat, it usually starts offering its chin within a week.

Long hair at the inner corners acts like a wick, drawing tears out onto the face and holding them there. The AKC notes that excess fur around the eyes holds on to gunk and crust, and that trimming long hair there with blunt-nose scissors can cut down irritation and staining. That cut is made right beside the eye, on a dog that may turn its head without warning, so most owners are better off leaving it to a groomer.

At Dogtown that is the face trim, a $10 add-on that tidies the hair around the eyes, muzzle and ears between full grooms. Book it with a bath, priced by weight from $55, so the face is washed and dried as well as shortened. On a white coat, whitening, an $8 brightening shampoo, can lift the overall color, while the stained tips themselves go only when they are trimmed off or grow out. Grooming needs no evaluation.

Daily cleaning is for a face that has always stained a little. The AKC's eye-care guidance lists discharge that is heavy, thick, smelly or discolored, along with redness, swelling, squinting and irritation that will not settle, as reasons to see a vet, and its tear stain article flags a white-faced dog that suddenly starts staining heavily. One eye watering while the other stays dry also points to a cause on that side. After hours, Gloucester's list of emergency veterinary offices is on the city website.

Cape Ann adds its own grit. A winter beach walk on a legal dog day, Good Harbor on even-numbered days through March 31 and Wingaersheek on odd-numbered days through April 30 at the time of writing, sends wind, spray and sand into a long-haired face, so do the routine when you get home rather than the next morning. A daycare dog can have the face trim added to its day, and the Pup Van covers Rockport, Gloucester, Essex and Manchester-by-the-Sea for $10 each way.