Preventing Ear Infections

[Eva (Lilo and Rocky)]

Does anyone have some good advice re: preventing ear infections, which I think is fairly common in doodles with floppy ears? I talked to my vet after yet another round of yeast, and he just says to keep the ears clean, free of hair and dry. Which I really try, but the dogs still get yeast! Maybe because we live in a wet climate, and they swim frequently, but it's maddening (and expensive) to have to constantly run to the vet for treatments, plus I feel really bad for the dogs.

[Liza, Halle and Finn]

What are the symptoms of an ear infection in my doodle? Since Saturday night, Kachi has been occasionally shaking his head back and forth, and his ears feel hot to me. But the thing that really concerns me, is that he seems to be sneezing quite a bit, yet I don't detect a lot of nasal drip.

[Jacquie Yorke (DRC)]

Have you tried cleaning them?......Sounds like he may have an infection in which case he will need to be seen by the vet............

[Eva (Lilo and Rocky)]

If infected, your dog's ear will look bright red and smell bad... the dog will often shake its head and scratch the ear/rub against something.

Your vet will need a culture to determine whether it's bacterial or yeast or even ear mites. My vet said 85% of the time it's yeast. In our case, it's been 100%... never seen a bacterial infection or mites, but I'm sure those are bad too!!

[Patty Barnes]

A tip from my vet's assistant has solved most of our ear problems. I used to pluck ear hair with my fingers or a hemostat. The assistant taught me to us a Q-Tip with a long wooden handle, which I buy from revivalanimal.com. Insert the Q-Tip and roll it around inside the ear. The deep hairs will wrap around the wood and will come out when you remove the stick. I have found this is a faster more productive way to pluck inner ear hair--and keep the ears infection free.

[Jacquie Yorke (DRC)]

great advice!

[9pavxfihcp80]

Very interesting! Thanks!

[Joy Originator of GiantSchnoodles]

By popular request reprint of ear care
Thu Jul 3 11:28:10 2003
66.126.66.203
Poodle ears are something I have had the misfortune of dealing with for many years. The painful hair pulling that most groomers are trained to do, often just aggravate the situation and cause more infection. After much experimentation I came up with a new way to deal with poodle ears. It is so simple and humane, I don’t know why someone didn’t think of it before.
The basic problem is that dogs with floppy ears don’t have air passing through the ears. Additionally, if they have hairy ears, the air is further blocked. So bacteria grow in the wet warm dark moist ears. What seems logical to me, is that you just need to get air down there and wash them out and dry them now and again. So here is what I came up with and it is working for me. No ear infections in 11 months.
Disclaimer: It is my method and my method only. It is not approved by the FDA, a vet or any other authorized authority. It has, however grown out of experience. Such as expensive and anguishing middle of the night visits to emergency vets when overly aggressive groomers have pulled too much hair out of ears, or I have let it go too long. I make no guarantees, just that it works for me. If you try it, please let me know how it works for you.
1. Buy a scissors in a beauty supply shop for clipping people nose hair. They have little nobs on the ends.
2. Carefully Clip the hair in the ears, you don’t need to get all of it out, you just need an air passage. Use a cotton swab or just finger to wipe the hair pieces out. They usually gum up on the goop and come out in a nice gummy mass. If your dog has had ear hair pulled, you need to be very careful because s/he now fears the pain of ears being touched so start at top of the ear canal with soothing talk until you have built up enough trust that the dog won’t jerk.
3. Use a cleaning solution.. I have had good success with Amway’s LOC. Flush the ear with it undiluted using a squeeze bottle. Then flush the ear with plain water using a different squeeze bottle. Then I use Otomax. There are other solutions that people swear by. Dermavet is good. Liz(RI) rery highly recomends Zymox, Nancy at Doodlesville has a formulala that she highly recomends.
4. At night, or for a few hours during the day, pin your dogs ears up with a binder clip. Just clip the end of the hair on the tips of the ears up over his/her head. The clip will eventually fall or be shaken out of course, But for awhile, air will get down into the ears.
5. Never use a q tip in the ears. Wipe the brown gunk out of the ears with diaper wipes until the diaper wipe comes out clean.
6. Never let a groomer pull the hair in the ears. Aggressive pulling = pain = irritation of the sensitive skin = infection = expensive vet visits
7. You can pull some of the hair with your fingers, but not agressively and not if it hurts. It should feel to the dog, like your scratching an itch. If the dog minds then stop pulling.
8. Smelly ears, if they don’t respond to this
treatment, require expensive vet visits. If they smell
there is something wrong.
9. If your dog is shaking his/her head excessively or
holding it to one side s/he is experiencing pain in her
ears.
10. Don’t try to have the ears squeaky clean. A little goop and hair is normal. We have a little goop in our ears don’t we?
I hope this helps save some dogs from pain and saves you some money.
Puppy love from Joy, & furry folk
What is a "binder clip"??? (nm)
Wed Aug 6 08:20:44 2003
64.12.97.8
metal spring loaded clip made to hold paper, also
Wed Aug 6 08:35:53 2003
64.12.97.8
can use clothes pins, hair scrunchies (sp?)...
Generally recommended that these things be used around small puppies ONLY under supervision (not good for tummy!).
Joy R - methinks you need to add an addendum to the ear care posting, as this is at least the second time this question has come up :)
Ear drying solution
Wed Aug 6 10:06:03 2003
216.66.108.130
One of the problems with labs and goldens is that they have sticky ear wax that the usual vet's 'otic' ointment doesn't dissolve. You need something that dissolves wax which is a solution of 30% alcohol, 30% vinegar, 30% water. You can omit the alcohol if you want. Do NOT put this solution into a smelly ear. Smelly ear means that there is already an infection and the ear is pretty raw and hurting. Alcohol is NOT indicated. Antibiotic is.
Put solution in maybe once every other week. Maybe 1/3 of a dropper into the ear canal. Let the dog shake her head hard and then wipe the outside of the ear with some kleenex. If there is a lot of black goop, repeat the treatment the next week until no more black/brown goop is shaken out. Then do it more infrequently. there is no need to go digging in the ear canal for total cleanliness. Just wipe off what you can easily get to.
I do pluck the hair out of my dogs ears maybe 4X a year. Just squirt in R-7 powder and then go in with your fingers and get what you can. You will need a strong light source. I agree with Joy that if the dog seems discomfited, just stop. But I do think it helps to get some of the longer hair out. My little girl, Molly, grows 2" hairs in there and they come out painlessly, covered with goop. I have to assume that is helps to have the stuff out of there. By the way - despite daily swimming, we have had only 2 minor infections out of 8 ears. Not bad for mid-August

Hi Swarl, A little plucking that is not painful is a good idea. MY article and the technique I developed was after hundreds of dollars spent in the middle of the night in the ER after an overenthusiastic groomer put my poor dog in extreme pain by overdoing it. Also, many groomers still use a thing we used to all a "roach clip" in the 70's. They pull the hair out of the ears while the dog whimpers in pain. This is very different from pulling some hair with your fingers, that doesn't hurt the dog. I think a good rule of thumb is to not pull anything that hurts. Then the ear canal does not get inflamed from the pulling.
I do go in with a make up swab and wipe out the g***. Not a Qtip, Just a makeup swab on the end of my finger. I havened tried your formula, although it seems to me we used to put alcohol and vinegar in our ears when dunking in a hot tub to prevent human ear infections I am wondering why you ad the water as vinegar is already mostly water? Also, my dogs hate it when I flood the ear so I just put the dermapet on the swab when I clean the ear. I could try this formula to put on the swab. What do you see as the advantages to flooding the ear? Thanks for the great post. Puppy love from Joy and furry people

Swarl
get some R-7 powder
Fri Nov 14 12:39:18 2003
216.66.108.130
You can get it from a pet supply or groomer. It is a powder that you pour liberally into the dogs ear. It helps you get ahold of the ear hair. Start doing just a bit at a time and the pup will get used to it. The hair way inside the ear doesn't hurt. some of the hair out at the edge may pull them a bit hard. Then cut the hair at the edge of the canal and all the hair under the ear flap all the way down the side of the head. Just cut it short and the air circulation will be better. I do it about 4 X a year. That seems to be enuf to keep their ears free of infection even tho they do a lot of swimming in the summer months.
Do not pluck the ear hair if it hurts the dog. It means that they have an infection. If they are infection free it shouldn't hurt. don't use a metal tool. Just your fingers will do. What you can't reach is not a problem. After a couple of days put in some vinegar/water mix - just a few drops, if you want to be sure that the ear wax is coming out. The dog will shake its head and the wax will fly around your house invisibly !!!!! repeat the solution every few days until the ear is clear of any black g*** when you gently rub it with a kleenex.
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Not sure why they call it Blue Powder as it isn't a powder. I would suggest getting Lucy's infammation down before using this as I am not certain if the alcohol will burn. I have been using this along with commercial ear clean and haven't had any problems, but watch it, it really does stain.
Have you looked into a possible food allergy as a source of her problem? Also, have her thyroid levels been checked recently?
Good luck.
Ingredients
16 oz Isopropyl Alcohol (will help dry the ear)
4 Tablespoons Boric Acid Powder (will sooth the ear)
16 Drops of Gentian Violet Solution 1% (anti-infection agent)
Mix together in bottle (use one shaped like a hair dye bottle) and shake well. You will need to shake solution every time you use it to disperse the Boric Acid Powder.
Treatment
Evaluate condition of ears before treating and if very inflamed and sore do not attempt to pull hair or clean out ear at all. Wait at least 2 days.
Shake the ear before using. Flood the ear with solution and massage for 30-60 seconds. Wipe with sterile pad or cotton. Don’t be afraid to go deep into the ear canal, you won’t puncture anything. Flood ear again, but do not massage. Let the dog shake out the excess, then wipe with tissue.
This solution will stain hair and fabric.
Schedule
Treat 2x a day for first week to two weeks depending upon severity of ears.
Treat 1x a day for the next week.
Treat 1x per month
This solution appears to work well on any and all ear problems from mites to wax to cankers. It is also effective for treating fungus type infection, cuts or hot spots.
This treatment also works well on People.
This is for external use only…don’t get into the eyes.
Quintzy is a 17-month old doodle with hairy ears. We had recurring ear infections for the first 6 months of his life, which antibiotics never quite cleared up. Then we found a product called "Zymox". It's an ear treatment composed of three natural antimicrobials - lactoperoxidase, lactoferrin and lysozyme. All three are derived from milk and have a killing action against bacteria and yeast. We followed the manufacturer's recommendation of a 14-day treatment (with no other rinses or ear flushing) to eliminate chronic infections. It worked. We have maintained Quintzy's ears clean and infection free by flushing every other day with a 50:50 mixture of vinegar and alcohol. But it's important for the ears to be completely healed and free of inflammation before using the alcohol - otherwise it will sting badly. We don't pluck Quintzy's ear hair; we follow the recommendations posted on various forums (fora?) in the past by Joy R.
A couple of months ago, we thought we were getting a bit of an ear smell, so we did another Zymox treatment. As it happened, Quintzy was due for his annual checkup and boosters shortly afterwards. His vet pronounced Quintzy's ear condition as excellent. We have made a slight shift in our treatment routine since that last smelly bit. Now we use the vinegar/alcohol flush on Mondays and Wednesdays. Then, on Friday morning, we put a couple of drops of Zymox into each ear and let it stay there through the weekend. Quintzy's ears are great; no smell and ABSOLUTELY no gunk.
We found Zymox on the internet. You should be able to locate the web site by searching on that name.
BTW, I'm a microbiologist, and I verified in my textbooks the manufacturer's claims regarding the mode of action of the three active ingredients for Zymox.

[Jacquie Yorke (DRC)]

My vet showed me how to clean deeply with a long Q-tip....He explained how the ear canal curves and that it's possible to go in deeply without getting close the ear drum....so I really get in there....I wrap more cotton on the end and saturate it with the Pharmaseb...Seems to be working well....Before he showed me how to do this, I never was able to get all the gunk out...

[Ellen Hopcia]

Yea!!! Thank You for your in depth information. It's hard to find someone who agrees about the constant and complete plucking of ears as well as the use of alot of chemicals on already tender ears!!!! I've been at odds with groomers and owners alike for years on this subject, and I, like yourself had to apply some plain old common sense. Thank You!

[Tante & Jordan & now Annie!]

You are awesome. Thank you!!
I have thought about pinning Jordan's ears back. I was going to bandanna her head. I just started using Zymox last week.Love it.

[Ellen Hopcia]

I'm only speaking from experience, so take it for what it's worth. My poodle, as a pup, had minor ear infections all the time and we tried just about everything. We found ear drying power or antibiotic ear powder worked the best. I plucked his ears regularly, then we came into summer. I mentioned to the groomer he swam regularly, and I noticed she didn't pluck the ears. She said they often don't pluck the ears entirely for the dogs that swim and use a drying powder if they suspect a problem brewing. We haven't had an infection since. When they get a little smelly I check for wax, pluck lightly and apply just the creme that turns to powder.
I've never plucked the doodle and she had a infection once (as a pup) and now has had no problem and she actually dives under the water. Makes you wonder a bit doesn't it? I'm not saying you shouldn't medicate when necessary, but I wonder if too much care (constant plucking) and the use of ear products upsets the natural balance of useful bacteria and yeast? I'd be interested in others opinions and experiences.

[Eva (Lilo and Rocky)]

Hi - what's the name of the drying powder you mention, and where do you buy it? I've never heard of that.