Hi Sally

There are a multitude of things that you can try- some seem to work for some dogs and not others, then there are also the more expensive products that are pretty much guaranteed to work provided that one uses them properly.

As a bichon owner I spent many hours pulling my own hair out looking for a "cure" in the past.

Initially I started by trying some of the lotions that you apply. Being a lazy old git I bored pretty quickly of these- the whole applying, waiting to dry and then brushing out, day in day out. To be fair I probably didn't use any of them for long enough for them to work.

After reading up on the whole dog tear staining thing I decided to go down the diet path. I did notice that some foods were worse than others with regard to staining but to honest I wasn't quite scientific enough to work out exactly which foods were the problems- a bit to hit and miss. Overall the BARF raw food diet seems to help reduce staining.

I tried the cider vinegar- seems to work for many owners but i couldn't get my boys to drink it!!!

A bichon shower recommended angels eyes, a food additive. I looked into it and discovered that it had 2 ingredients- beef liver and something called tylosin tartrate.

Tylosin is a narrow spectrum antibiotic that was developed by Elanco in the 60's to fight respiratory problems in poultry. Whilst routinely testing it on other animals they discovered that dogs no longer had tear stains. It is generally accepted that tylosin is safe for dogs, but to date no research into the long term use of it exists.

I decided to try it out, and as promised it started working with in three weeks. It doesn't get rid of existing stains but you do see the new hair growing through as stain free. Other than the eyes it aslo deals with the other beard stains and stains wherever your dog likes its coat.

A dogs tears and saliva contains (amongst other things) bacteria and unoxidised metallic elements. Left to their own devices the metallic elements start to "rust" and bond with the bacteria. The by product of this is the enzyme that is the building block of the red yeast (the root of the rusty red staining).

The warm damp fur is an ideal breeding ground for the bacteria thereby exacerbating the problem.

Angels eyes works by killing the bacteria and thus preventing the creation of the yeast.

All was well until the government (uk/ europewide) decided to ban angels eyes and angels glow (an almost identical product) early this year.

Fortunately my supplier had already been trialling a new product called angels delight- (what is it with the word angels and tear stains?). Being antibiotic free it works by oxidising the iron inside the body so that the bacteria has nothing to bond with and once again no red yeast.

Angels delight works just as well but did take a little longer. I didn't mind as it is 100% natural and is actually full of stuff which is actually good for my dog.

here are links to info on angels eyes and tylosin

and to angels delight

I have heard of one other natural product but would not recommend it as it has hops which can be very dangerous to dogs.

Please note that there is no cure though- even with Angels delight you will need to use it once every couple of weeks or so to keep the stains away.

Some dogs grow out of staining but by the same token dogs can develop staining late in life- no one knows why?!?!?!?!