Dog ear infection

[BuzzStPoint]

Our little Amber has gotten ear infections. I've read this is common in floppy eared dogs.
She scratches at her ears and cries, If you pull on her ears she will cry and is always shaking her head.

I was going to make an appointment at the vet, but someone at work told me not to and buy Zymox Otic and use that.

Anyone use that or have any other products to try?

 

[Brewman61]

Re: Dog ear infection

Take her to the vet. My wife is a vet tech, and she constantly tells me about pet owners who for whatever reason, balk at taking their pets in for treatment. So they wait it out, try home remedies, etc..... which seldom work. The advanced state of their pets illness ultimately drives up the cost of treatment since it can then involve more expensive medications, emergency visits, overnight hospitilization, etc.......
I realize it's not cheap, but neither is being wrong.

Actually, it's pretty reckless for someone make that recommendation to you. Are they willing to back up their advice if things go south?

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Dog ear infection

I had a Golden Retriever that had chronic ear infections her whole life and that is what the vet recommended we use for her, it was the only thing we found that actually helped her, I highly recommend it, also another thing the vet suggested for our dog was to give her a benadryl tablet, the type with out the decongestant in it, just the straight benadryl. Now of course our dog was a large dog, over 100 pounds so if yours is smaller you would probably have to reduce the dosage by cutting the pill down. Normally ear infections in dogs are caused by specific allergies to food, so you might also want to look into changing your dogs food to a more natural type..

But again, the Zymox is great stuff....

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Dog ear infection

What about us guys that recommend based on what our Vet told us to use, if I didn't have several years of experience with the Zymox I would have not said anything. It worked very well in our case, the vet told us to use this, as the only other alternative was to surgically remove her ear canals, which was not the alternative that we liked.

 

[rbh]

Re: Dog ear infection

We found with our german sheppard, that if we cleaned the waxy crud build up in the ear occasionaly he was a happy camper, don't do it and he would rub his ears till they got sores.

Getting a second dog was also good as she would lick the inside's of his ears clean, I guess thats how it is supposed to be done in nature anyways.

 

[captainzac]

Re: Dog ear infection

If the dog gets in the water I have found that
drops of swimmers ear works.
This dries out the ear from lake water
floppy ear dogs have trouble getting there ears dry
that why they shake there heads long after they are dry

Harry

 

[BuzzStPoint]

Re: Dog ear infection

We found with our german sheppard, that if we cleaned the waxy crud build up in the ear occasionaly he was a happy camper, don't do it and he would rub his ears till they got sores.

Getting a second dog was also good as she would lick the inside's of his ears clean, I guess thats how it is supposed to be done in nature anyways.

We do have a 2nd dog, (Charlie) he's been licking her ears, but we've been stopping him because they'll sit there for like 30 minutes just licking the ears.

I gave her a benadryl this morning.. Our vet told us to do that with Charlie when we need to clip his nails. Otherwise the vet wants to sedate him to clip his nails.

Might have to look into other food. We've tried various foods since she was a puppy. Certain food make her smelly dog... It's not very lady like, she can clear out a room if we use the cheap dog foods.

 

[avenger79]

Re: Dog ear infection

We do have a 2nd dog, (Charlie) he's been licking her ears, but we've been stopping him because they'll sit there for like 30 minutes just licking the ears.

I gave her a benadryl this morning.. Our vet told us to do that with Charlie when we need to clip his nails. Otherwise the vet wants to sedate him to clip his nails.

Might have to look into other food. We've tried various foods since she was a puppy. Certain food make her smelly dog... It's not very lady like, she can clear out a room if we use the cheap dog foods.

maybe she needs some Beano with her new food. LOL my boxer is the same way. drops a big bomb and then looks around like "who did that?" She tries to blame the little poodle but the poodle is already sniffing lucy's butt trying to source the smell.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Dog ear infection

It is normally a food allergy. My yellow lab can not eat anything with corn in it or he gets bad ear infections...... he get's lamb and rice dog food and he is fine.

Consider what you are feeding the dog and change foods.

 

[dockwrecker]

Re: Dog ear infection

Get thee and thy doggie to the vetski pronto! There are so many causes of ear infections and they all need to be treated differently! I have two English Labroadors and they from time to time come down with ear infections. But just my luck, the type of infection has varied. Do your doggie a favor and get it checked, small price to pay for what they mean to us!

 

[Jeff-in-PA]

Re: Dog ear infection

Our greater swiss mountain dog had ear problems when we got him at 5 months old. After many trips to the vet, it was finally determined to be ear mites.

He gets Revolution now and hasn't had ear problems in years.

Just another possibility.

 

[paultjohnson]

Re: Dog ear infection

Dude ! Do the right thing and take the little girl to the vet. She would probably give her life for you, and her people are her whole world. You owe it to her. Ear infections can be sooooooo uncomfortable. Do it right.. Then watch this www.indigo.org/rainbowbridge_ver2html scroll down and click on rainbow bridge ...........It will give you a little added inspiration

 

[salty87]

Re: Dog ear infection

if you've dealt with it before and it's a recurring sort of thing, then by all means take care of it.

judging by the fact that you're posting here, i'm thinking you haven't dealt with the infection before...get her to the vet! an ear infection can get out of control quickly and then you can get secondary infections. they can also be caused by many different things.

for those with swimming dogs...try a little bit of vinegar, it will change the ph. if there's an infection though, don't do this. many infections need water, you don't want to introduce more water if an infection is there. the vinegar is a preventative, not a cure.

imo, a good vet will tell you how to deal with a chronic problem over the counter. the only catch is that you'll have seen the vet several times before you learn about that type of infection.

 

[Tim Frank]

Re: Dog ear infection

Our greater swiss mountain dog had ear problems when we got him at 5 months old. After many trips to the vet, it was finally determined to be ear mites.

He gets Revolution now and hasn't had ear problems in years.

Just another possibility.

^^^^^

Exactly...and why you shouldn't be guessing at what is the problem.
A vet will sort this out pronto.

 

[nlain]

Re: Dog ear infection

I had adopted a cat, she started having a lot of wax out of the ear, took her to the vet, he thought just minor infection, but then later when it would not get better and we went back several times and he started checking more closely, it was cancer and too far gone to fix, had to put her down. So go to the vet and make sure he checks completely.

 

[Brewman61]

Re: Dog ear infection

Exactly why a trip to the vet is your best bet. Many possibilities- if there is an infection and it's is allowed to fester, that could lead to a really bad thing.
Find out for sure what the problem is, and treat it. That's what the vet is for. Like I said in my earlier post, my wife has seen countless occurrences of self diagnosis and hesitance to seek timely help, and in the end the animal may needlessly suffer, and the ultimate cost will be higher.

 

[nlain]

Re: Dog ear infection

In our case we did go to the vet, should have insisted they check further, used this vet for long time and trusted their judgment, anything like this every happen again we will insist they check more carefully. It was missed in the beginning, not sure if more checking then would have helped or not, but return trips we should have insisted, we did not and we lost a very loving baby. Just insist they check everything, may be simple infection, may be more, could save a life and heartache.