eye infections from dog beach?

[Teamshredit]

 Lucas has recently been getting bouts of conjunctivitis which we have been treating with an ointment. I am noticing they flare up the morning after he goes swimming in the ocean(we go to dog beach in Del Mar). Has anyone else had this problem? I feel badly because they love swimming and playing with the other dogs, but we can no longer go there. 

[shangrila]

What is probably happening is that sand and salt are getting into Lucas' eye and then not washing out normally. That makes it itch and he is itching it in the night, getting bacteria in his eye (hence the flame ups are the morning after).

You can solve this by buying saline artificial tears (not visine or anything, just plain old saline) and using them to rinse out the dogs' eyes after every time you go to the beach. They should wash out any sand and salt so that the pups wont try and cratch it out.