Expert: Charlotte Sherrell, DVM - 4/19/2009

Question
I have a 7 year old chocolate lab who is in glorious health and very active. However I noticed the other day that he had something wrong with his eye. To be specific his right eye (not the actual eye, but the skin on the outside of it) looks like it was cut or something. It is slightly seperated from the skin and then on the outer area of his side eyelid he has a perfectly round ball that looks like it had a little blood at one point. I have taken a warm wash cloth and placed it on his eye to wipe off the slight drainage that come from his eye. The white of his eye is a little red and looks irritated. He doesn't act like he is in any pain whatsoever, and it probably bothers me more than it bothers him. It is looking like it could maybe be infected, but I am wondering what this could be. I want to be able to put something on it to stop infection if that is the case, but I don't know if I can use something like neosporin on a dog. Do these things happen often to labs or what could this be?
Any help would be great!

Answer
Jaynie -

Have your pet examined by a veterinarian. I do  not recommended that you use Neosporin on that area because it is so close to the eye; only medicine that is used for the eye should be placed into or around the eye.

Best Regards,

Charlotte Sherrell, DVM