Cleaning your dog's ears on a regular basis is an important thing to do, eapecially when you have a dog with floppy ears, because dirt and moisture can become trapped in the ears more easily.
Most veterinarians recommend that you do not use q-tips for cleaning your dogs ears, but i have done this and not had any trouble, as long as you are not getting way down inside of the ear. For the outer parts, it seemed to work okay for me; however, most vets say to use a cotton ball instead.
You can clean your dogs ears with a mixture of white vinegar and water (half and half), and this will dry up any yeast infection they have in their ears. Hydrogen peroxide is another good product to use to clean your dog's ears, since it will usually fizz dirt up to the top where it can be easily wiped out with the cotton ball.
http://www.petwave.com/Dogs/Health/Ear-I...aning.aspx
I was always told not to clean out their ears. Growing up, I had a dog and my vet said that cleaning a dog's ears is not very safe and not necessary. Has this information changed recently? Plus, I would never use a q-tip. I would be too afraid that I would accidently go too far, or my dog would turn his head too abruptly and get hurt.
I think that it depends on the dog, how often that you need to clean their ears. If your dog was one of the wiggly breeds and would not hold still for you to clean its ears, then the vet would have probably been concerned about having you clean his ears. We used to have a big Collie when I was a child, and I don't ever remember my mother having to clean Bonzo's ears; so probably some dogs need it more than other dogs do.
If a dog seems to be shaking its head a lot, or having problems with its ears; then I think it is a good idea to clean the ears. I have used peroxide to clean my dog's ears before, and it seems to work really well.
Thanks for that sharing that article, TS! I always make sure that my dogs' ears are clean regularly. I buy ear cleaners from the pet shop near our home. When I was a kid, my grandparents' had a dog who died because his ears got infected. I don't want that to happen again, so I make sure that the ears of the dogs here are clean. If I am too busy because of work, I take them to the grooming center for baths and teeth/ear cleaning.
We do clean our dogs ears at home. They do go to a dog groomer as well and they clean them there as well. I was a little nervous at first but I asked my groomer and she was more than happy to show me the correct way to do it. It's really something that should be done on a regular basis too.
Danyel
I think whether you need to clean or not has a lot to do with the breed of dog and what its ears are like. I am sure that in theory no dog should need its ears cleaned as nature does have an efficient self cleaning mechanism for ears but the reality is that some concentrated inbreeding has resulted in some breeds having ears that do need help with cleaning. The obvious ones are those with floppy ears but there can also be a problem with some breeds that have lots of dense fur.
I think the best thing to do is see your vet and be led by them - they will know if any help is needed and tell you how to do it.
That is a very good point, Puppet, and in nature, the wild dogs are not going to have someone there with a cotton ball to clean out their ears. Most of the wild breeds of dogs, like coyote and foxes, seem to have naturally pointed ears; so they would not gather moisture like a floppy-eared dog does. Even though most of the breeds we have now must have come from some wild breed originally, it is probably our doing that we have dogs without sharp ears. At least I can't think of any wild breeds of floppy-eared dogs, offhand.
One thing that I have observed in dogs, cats, and even horses, is that they will groom each other; so maybe that is how wolves get their ears cleaned ? My Chipper, who is about as far removed from a wild breed as you can get, just loves to lay there and clean Tootsie's face and ears.
I have had cats that groomed not only themselves, but other cats, as well. Also, animals can smell when there is an infection, and will lick that to get rid of the infection, either on themselves, or on another dog. So, I think that wild dogs probably did have clean ears, one way or the other.
I think it's very necessary. Because there may cause eye irritation if their eyes didn't been cleaned immediately. In addition, the dogs with long, light hair need cleaning to keep beautiful1
I do clean my dogs ears. My vet told me to do it every few days. He said just to put a Kleenex on my finger and gently put it in the ear canal. Not too rough. If they are really dirty I will do the same thing but with those premoistened ear wipes for dogs. My dogs actually like it and will run and lay down in their beds when I get a tissue!
Yes i do clean. Working at a vet's, we'd put a small quantity of shampoo within the ear, massage the ear after which rinse out with a child bulb syringe filled with luke heat water. then again, if there's a variety of black taking a look stuff in the ear canal, have your canine checked for ear mites.