I have 5 Maltese dogs and I have a lot of experience with Maltese eye stain and maybe I can help you with some solutions.

When I got my first Maltese puppy, I noticed that my cute little puppy had tear stains around her eyes and so I checked with my veterinarian to find out what was going on. I found out that Maltese have a tendency toward eye stains in their breed.

Okay, so now what do I do? I got permission from my vet to try several tear stain solutions and I will share a few here that might help you too.

Tip 1 ? It helps your Maltese to keep their faces clean and dry. When I was first dealing with Maltese eye stain I washed my puppy's face every day. After cleaning make sure the area is thoroughly dry.

Tip 2 ? Take a close look at the food your dog is eating along with the water that they drink. In some cases there are dyes in the food which can actually exacerbate the tear staining further. One solution is to actually prepare the food yourself using only natural ingredients and allow them only to drink bottled water.

Tip 3 ? It helps to keep the hair out of your Maltese dog's eyes because hair in the eyes can increase eye irritation and cause your dog's eyes to water and drain. Many Maltese owners accomplish this by putting the hair around the eyes into a pony tail top knot above the head - kind of cute for those of you that like that. You can also trim the hair around the eyes but for those of you that have an unsteady hand or your Maltese is a bit jumpy or skittish - I don't recommend that you do the trimming yourself or you may cause an injury.

Tip 4 ? I hesitate to even share this tip because I do NOT recommend that you do this. However it is important for you to be aware of this method that some Maltese owners use. Some people use bleach products applied to the hair around the eyes to get rid of these stains but this method can actually be extremely harmful to your dog. In fact it can not only hurt your dog, it may well lead to further staining around the eye area.

Tip 5 ? This is the only method I use now because it is so easy and it works for all 5 of my Maltese dogs to keep their faces clean, dry and beautifully white. I use this special all natural powder and mix it in with my dog's food or water. And within about 2 weeks the draining from the eyes stopped and after trimming away the stained hair as it grew out my Maltese were beautiful and no longer had eye stain problems. So this is now my favorite way to battle those eye stains ? with 5 Maltese I needed a simple easy fail-safe way that works.