That's a tricky question because I'd usually say that you shouldn't depend on that, don't wait, hoping that will happen. But cats are trickier than dogs because they can commonly have recurrent issues from a chronic herpes viral infection from when they were snotty-nosed, crusty-eyed little kittens. Herpes is forever, so it's still going to be around. Some cats can have flare-ups related to stress or changes in the household. I have seen situations where a cat may have a flare-up, and in some cases, its body deals with it, and it goes away. But you don't want to be wrong when it could have gotten a scratch on the eye or the herpes flare-up led to something more that led to an ulcer or a scratch on the eye. So, don't wait for that to happen, have it checked out. You can't always see a scratch on their eye. It's not an obvious gash going across it. Sometimes it's a small area on the part of the eye that you can't see, and it takes special stains to show up.

If you suspect there's an eye issue, have it seen. Make sure of what you're dealing with. If it ends up being something minor, then that's great; you're lucky. But if it's not, it's better to address it sooner rather than later before something worsens or something irreparable happens with that eye. Give us a call and explain your situation ASAP. We'll help you decide whether you need to come in for an emergency, if you need to go to an emergency clinic, or if we can set an appointment for the next day, and we can go from there.

You have to be careful with that. You don't want to grab things out of your cabinet, even if the issue is similar to an old problem. Don't be like, "Oh, my cat had this before, let me get these meds from before," because it may not be the same issue, or there may be something else going on that we need to address. If your cat will even let you, the only thing that you can do is to use sterile saline eyewash to flush an eye out. But the answer will always be to see a veterinarian. We can make sure that it's not something we need to treat specifically, and we'll treat it correctly.

In some situations, it's good care and hygiene, but there's a good number of eye diseases that have nothing to do with cleaning and with what you're doing. Many dogs out there don't need routine cleaning. They have big, regular-shaped faces. Their eyelids work correctly and they don't have a lot of hair on their face. With some dog breeds, you never even have to clean their eyes, technically. But there are some cases where you want to make sure that their hair's not getting in their face and they're not collecting a bunch of matter there that's causing irritation. Specific grooming is important, but thinking that if you clean your dog's eyes, it's not going to have any eye problems is not a realistic expectation.

Cleaning could help avoid some but not all problems. But if they have a lot of hair near their eyes and it gets gooped up, it can cause issues and infections. So get the hair trimmed in that area, or take one of those little cones and brush it free.