Dirty dog ears

I am sorry, I have been so wrapped up in my own stuff I am just now getting to this. Buster gets ear infections, especially in the warmer months. He gets otitis externa caused by yeast. I have an ear wash prescribed by my vet, to use every few days. He hates it, but I usually do manage to pin him down, and fill both ears about once a week. Another thing, that I think helps is, when I see him asleep, I flip his ear over so air can get into it. That along with the ear wash, seems to keep his ears, from becoming a problem for him. The vet said his problem was caused by yeast, because of the excess moisture, because he has such long floppy ears.

When I was a kid we had a cocker with horrible ear problems. My Mom crocheted her a bonnet that held her ears up so air could circulate, and her ears could stay dry inside. I guess that might have been before the ear wash stuff we have now.

I don't know about the PH, but I think dry and clean would be the best for any dog. Dogs with floppy ears seem to have the most problems.

I am interested to hear how the new diet works. It seams like that would be a whole lot easier that flipping, dripping, and bonnets.

Dec 4, 2014 19:16:11 GMT nhg said:

I had that post on FB with the puppies! Is that then one? It was so cute! He's booked in to be looked at tomorrow. We found a vet that's a little cheaper and my hubby wants him looked at so he gave me the money.

Yes that was the one.

Glad hubby at least cares about the dog.

He has a mild infection but she said I've been doing a good job of taking care of it. So he has antibiotic drops now. For reference, if anyone else has to deal with this she said that it would have been okay for me to clean them every single day while they were messy. I was trying not to clean them any more often than necessary in case I irritated them more than they already were.

And he was a good boy at the vet and even went up to two people including a man in a cowboy hat! Brodie came to us terrified of men and more so of men in hats. He was even relaxed enough to lie down in the room while we waited for the vet to come in. He was shivering a bit and looked concerned when the vet examined him but he let her do everything and stood there like a trooper.He's come such a long way, I'm so proud of him.

From what the vet said it sounds like if the feet are involved that tells you it's an allergy, as you already know. She thinks with Brodie he might have got water in his ears from the canal that runs behind our house. It's pretty dirty although it doesn't look like it, we're warned not to let a horse drink from it.

Anyway, from what I looked up Brewer's yeast is a bad additive in dog food for allergies and the vet mentioned grains being bad so maybe the horse feed would be an issue. Also products that you use on your floors can do it. I know the Swiffer Wet Jet is bad for dogs.

The problem with dog allergies is that it takes weeks to see an improvement and it just takes one snack they shouldn't have to set them right back to where they started.

I hear you about feeding cheaper brands. We have four dogs from 48 pounds up to almost 80 pounds. We can't afford to give them high end food. Blue actually isn't all that great anyway, by the way, they changed their formula since they first came out. I hate to say it but we've fed crap like Beneful and our dogs have all lived to good ages and have been healthy. We change their food every once in a while so it's not always the same to give them some variety or if something's on sale. We also don't bother slowly changing the food over, we just give them the new stuff.

You could try a raw diet but it's a PIA, it's pricey and the dog can then carry salmonella in it's mouth. Dogs that visit old folk's homes and hospital patients aren't allowed to be on a raw diet because of this. And if your guy is just going to get into stuff he shouldn't it's pointless.