Saturday, June 4, 2011

Ear Care for Dogs



I recently had a customer come in and tell me that her 6 year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel had gone deaf? She had taken the dog to the Veterinarian and after making loud noises, he told her that the dog had indeed lost its hearing?

When I looked into the dog's ears it was visually clear that the dog had impacted wax in its ears. This is typical of dogs with heavy floppy ears.

I have in the past at the Mrs. Bones Bowtique sold dog ear care products. Ear care is pretty basic and easy with inexpensive things available at the drug store. You will need a bulb syringe like the one in the photo, these are usually in the babycare section, and peroxide.

When the animal has dried impacted wax, you will also need Sweet Oil, available at some drugstores or a health and vitamin store. Generously swap a q-tip with Sweet Oil and apply it to the outer interior of the ear canal, this will soften was so it can later be washed away with the bulb syringe. You may want to apply the sweet oil over a few day period if the wax is really hard and then clean out.

With warm (not hot dogs are sensitive to temperature)water use the bulb syringe to irrigate the ear canal. Your dog will want to shake his or her head thats fine, because this could be a process that takes a while depending on the ears condition. When every thing is clean use the syringe to put little hydrogen peroxide in the ear canal to help sterilize and dry things up. There are things that can be used if the dog has yeast in their ears like apple cider vinigar on a cotton pad to wipe the outer ear canal out with occaisionally to keep the ears PH in ck. There are vetrinary medicines that can be helpful if your not succesful with the at home procedures. Remember do not insert anything deeply into the ear canal and consult your vet if an irritated condition persists.