Ear Care Kit: What to Use and What to Avoid

Ear infections are among the most common reasons dogs see a vet, and a fair amount of ear trouble is caused or worsened by well-meaning home care.

Here is what actually helps.

First: healthy ears do not need routine cleaning

This surprises people.

Over-cleaning irritates the canal lining, strips protective wax, and can create the inflammation that leads to infection. A dog with normal ears and no history of problems does not need weekly cleaning.

Clean when:

• There is visible debris or wax
• After swimming or a bath
• As directed after an infection
• If your dog is prone to problems

Check weekly regardless. Lift the flap, look, and smell. Thirty seconds, and it is the part that actually matters.

What to use

A proper veterinary ear cleaner. That is the whole answer.

Look for one that is:

• pH balanced for a dog’s ear
• Drying, if your dog swims or has drop ears
• Ceruminolytic (wax-dissolving), for waxy ears
• Recommended by your vet for your dog’s specific situation

Different formulations do different jobs, and a dog with a yeast problem needs something different from a dog with wax build-up. Ask rather than guessing.

What never to put in an ear

• Cotton buds pushed into the canal. They pack debris against the eardrum. The old advice about not putting anything smaller than your elbow in an ear applies to dogs too
• Water. Leaves moisture behind, which is the problem you are trying to avoid
• Hydrogen peroxide. Damages tissue and leaves water behind
• Alcohol. Stings badly on inflamed skin
• Vinegar solutions. A popular home remedy; painful on broken skin and not appropriate for most conditions
• Olive oil or coconut oil. Traps debris and provides a growth medium
• Tea tree oil. Toxic to dogs at pet-shop concentrations
• Leftover prescription drops from a previous infection. The single most important one — see below

Why leftover drops are dangerous

Some ear medications are toxic to the inner ear if the eardrum is perforated.

Your vet checks the eardrum with an otoscope before prescribing. You cannot. A dog with a ruptured eardrum treated with the wrong drops can suffer permanent hearing loss or vestibular damage.

Also: treatment depends entirely on what is growing. Yeast, bacteria (rods versus cocci) and mites all need different drugs, and a swab under the microscope takes minutes and determines everything.

How to clean properly

1. Fill the canal generously with the cleaner. Being timid with the amount is the most common mistake — it needs to reach the bottom of the vertical canal
2. Massage the base of the ear for twenty to thirty seconds. You should hear a squelch
3. Let your dog shake. Stand back
4. Wipe the visible parts — the flap and the opening — with cotton wool or a soft pad. Nothing goes into the canal
5. Repeat if very dirty

If cleaning hurts, stop and see a vet. A painful ear is an inflamed ear.

Drying, which matters more than cleaning

For swimming dogs and drop-eared breeds, drying after water is the single most effective preventive measure.

• A dry cotton pad held at the canal opening to wick moisture
• A drying ear solution, if your vet recommends one
• Never a bud pushed in
• Never a hairdryer aimed into the ear

For thick-coated dogs, drying the whole head properly matters too.

Hair in the ears

Contentious, and worth asking about rather than assuming.

Plucking hair from inside the canal was standard practice in Poodles, doodles and some terriers. Current thinking is more cautious: plucking causes micro-trauma and inflammation, which can itself trigger infection.

Ask your vet what suits your dog. For some dogs with very hairy canals and recurrent problems, plucking helps. For others it causes the problem.

Trimming the hair around the opening is uncontroversial and helps airflow.

The underlying cause

This is the part that gets missed.

Recurrent ear infections almost always have an underlying cause, most commonly allergy — atopic dermatitis or food allergy. In many dogs, the ear is the first and sometimes the only place allergy shows.

Treating infection after infection without investigating the cause is a cycle that can run for years and, in the worst cases, ends in surgery to remove a permanently closed canal.

Push for the underlying diagnosis at the third infection, not the tenth.

Other causes: ear mites, foreign bodies (grass seeds, which cause sudden severe one-sided pain), endocrine disease, and polyps.

Which dogs need most attention

• Drop-eared breeds — Spaniels, Basset Hounds, Labradors, Beagles, Poodles
• Swimmers
• Dogs with allergies
• Hairy-canalled breeds — Poodles, doodles, some terriers
• Narrow-canalled breeds — Shar Peis, brachycephalics

Signs to see a vet

• Head shaking or tilting
• Scratching at the ear, or rubbing the head along furniture
• Odour
• Redness, swelling or heat
• Discharge of any colour
• Pain when the ear or the area below it is touched
• Reluctance to have the head handled
• A swelling of the ear flap itself — an aural haematoma, caused by head shaking, which needs treatment

Sudden severe pain in one ear after a walk in long grass is a grass seed until proven otherwise. Go the same day.

The kit worth having

• A veterinary ear cleaner appropriate to your dog
• Cotton wool pads
• Wipes for the flap
• A towel
• Nothing else

And the weekly thirty-second check, which finds the problem while it is still easy to treat.