Dog licking other dogs eyes

Question
Hi there,  I saw the part in your description about not giving medical advice, but I have what I think is a fairly mild medical question and unfortunately, all of the other experts that do answer medical questions seem to be maxed out.  I have a schnauzer mix so maybe you'll know a little about this; I have an older schnauzer mix (apx. 9 years) who has some pancreatitus which we treat with enzymes and she's doing really well.  We recently adopted a 2 year old border terrier and they've really become friends.  In the last couple of days, he's been kind of obsessed with licking her eyes.  I did a google search and saw that it's usually just part of their behaiviour where he's cleaning her to give her the respect of being the Alpha dog, however, it seems to be irritating one of her eyes.  She's had a little more liquid in that eye and when she woke up this morning, she had a lot of gunk in it which I cleaned with a warm towel.  What I'm wondering is, do you think it's just creating more liquid to protect it from the irritation of him licking it, or does he know something we don't and maybe she has an infection?  I was also thinking it could be allergies or something.  Since she already has so many expensive vet bills, I'm trying to avoid going in for something that may not be neccesary.  I understand that you can't diagnose this, but I'm just curious if you have any advice.  Thanks so much for your time!

Answer

Submissive Licking to In my experience, when one dog starts licking at another one, particularly in the same area, there is a reason for it. His licking did not cause her eye infection; he is playing nursemaid to her and trying to clean her eyes for her *because* of the infection. Dogs like this are great at spotting problems long before we realize we have one. Lift your gal's eyelid up and I am sure you will see one very irritated eyeball. The whites of the eye should be just that... not pink or red. Yes, she needs eye meds from the doc.

The submissive licking to which you refer generally involves licking around the lips or mouth, and that is most often done by a youngster to a more dominant adult.