Our Very Expensive Mistake.

[Camilla and Darwin]

I learned a lesson about procrastination today. See, we bathe Darwin quite a bit. And I know you are supposed to buy ear wash, put cotton balls in their ears, pluck hair, etc. to avoid ear infections. But we don't have any ear wash, and he has never had an infection before so I just put off buying it. For some reason I just didn't worry.

Well, we went to a lake this past week, and guess who got an ear infection? Yep, poor Darwin has yeasty, red ears. We took him to the vet today and left 200 dollars poorer. It just frustrates me that we could have easily avoided this, but I was too negligent to think about it. Now poor Darwin is uncomfortable, and I feel awful! So if you are putting something like this off, DON'T! It's not worth it!

[Nancie & Gracie Doodle]

Poor Darwin. An ear infection and a Jack Russell living right next door...again! I always have the ear stuff...couldn't live without it!

[Sue, Murphy and Bella ()*o*()]

I feel I have become the ear infection Queen, as we have had more months WITH ear infections than WITHOUT for our doodles first year of life. He started with them around 4 months old and had infections off and on until about 10 months old, was good for about 8 months and just got another one 3 weeks ago (19months old now) that I think we have cured. Luckily this bill was ONLY $145.00 this time. Cheap in terms of ear infection vet bills.
He gets them from ANY water: baths, pool, lakes, ocean, sprinklers. His ears are cleaned, swabbed, wiped, plucked, dried, tied back at night, blown dry with cool air after a bath, flushed with medication, dried with powder medication in between. I have even thought maybe I was OVER cleaning and the vet told me that I needed to keep them VERY clean, so I continue to clean them weekly when not treating an infection.
I have 7 different bottles of solutions and 4 empty tubes of various topical antibiotics. He has had numerous swab tests and cultures and fights like he's on fire if you try to put a otoscope near him, so diagnosing is really tough on everyone involved. We have spent so much money on vet bills and medications that it will probably be what makes me ultimately decide to not get another doodle, as I just can't see doing this again or paying these bills again.
It really is hard to watch his head shaking and head tilting and red ears with black gunk and know that you have done everything humanly possible to make it better and it's not. What's worse is keeping this water loving dog away from water as he probably the most happy when he's playing in or with water. Unless he has a ball while he's in the water and then I'm sure he thinks he's in heaven! So I feel that it is true, that if they are prone to ear infections, then there is just so much you can do to stop them. But an ounce of prevention is worth pounds and pounds of cure, so keep cleaning those ears.!!!!

[F, Calla & Luca]

The hears not the finger, hope that heals quickly.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Funny!

[Linda, Webber and Seda]

I am not that clever. It was a mistake. I cut my finger with a razor blade and am having trouble typing!!

[Wendy and Eddie]

Seda had bilateral yeast infections in her hears.

I have to say--this is just perfect if it's a typo. If it's on purpose, I'm impressed!

[Linda, Webber and Seda]

I just went through this last week. Seda had bilateral yeast infections in her hears. 20.00 for the swab to get the drainage and look at it under the microscope, 17.00 for the miconozole 1% solution (60 ml) and 17.00 for the ear wash (Epi-otic, 8 ounces) and 40.00 for the puppy exam. Webber is 2 3/4 years old and has never had an ear infection. I rarely wash his ears out. I think it is the dog.

[Camilla and Darwin]

I thought it was insanely expensive as well. They charged us for a steroid to make him feel better, ointment AND ear cleanser for the ear, the swab test, the test where they look down at his ear drum... and an ear cleaning to "demonstrate" (I tried to tell them I didn't need a demonstration, but he said it was necessary and did it anyways) also, the 40 dollar vet visit. I don't know if that is reasonable or not, as we have never had anything similar.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

The one big plus to JD's shedding, retrieverish coat...no more ear infections! I did weekly ear cleaning for 28 years on my poodle & poodle-mix. After a while, it becomes habit. Kinda like giving Jackdoodle his pills every night.
My dogs liked having their ears cleaned, especially the part where you massage around the ears to work the solution in. My poodle would make little grunting sounds!
Having just paid $400 in vet bills for a 23 day period (this time, it was mostly the cat who cost a bundle) I can certainly sympathize with that part of your post. At this point, any vet visit that stays under three figures seems like a bargain!

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

I'm with Amanda and Jane. Why so expensive? I'm not even going to say what I paid yesterday to have 2 dogs seen and medication but I had enough left over to buy lunch .