Dogs have amazing ears, they can pick up the sound of a rabbit running away all the wood, walk from a good mile away but unfortunately they can also be a bit of weak link in some dogs particularly hairy dogs with droop ears have spaniels, basset hounds anything like that. They can have problems with their ears and these problems can range from bacteria infections. So it is an important thing to keep on top your dog's ear and make sure that you care on regular basis and these are my top tips to keep your dog's ears in really good nick.
The first one is to do with just checking your dog's ears and if you do this on a regular basis wherever you groom them, and this top ear, have a look down there and giant ears, they are really good shape though. She has got nice big open ear canals there is no whacks, whacks would be a black sludge in the ears there and also they are not red, so if this skin was all red that would be a sign of infection. And the other tip you can do which you may not want to do is give it a sniff. So have a bit of smell there is a bit of an airy smell there but when they have got an air infection or whacks in that it is really unpleasant and that is the time to get them down to the vet.
So what can you do to prevent your dog from having air trouble? Well, first thing you can do is actually, it sound a bit strange, pluck his ears. If he has got old man ears, there is lot of hairs coming out from there, they act as a magnet trapping whacks and stay alert in this, the bacteria infection can get in there. So either you will groom, if you can skid get in there and pluck any hair out coming out of the ear there and that will help keep the ear environment nice and clean and fresh. Then if there is a build up of whacks, what you need to do is a quick through with some ear cleaner which you will get from your vet and my tip for cleaning dog's ears goes like this.
So you hold the dog's ear like so, you take your ear cleaner, you pour it into the ear canal until it is full, keeping hold of the ear because if you don't hold of the ear, the dog will shake its head and you will have ear cleaner reverie. And gently massage the ear canal, now the ear cannel in a dog runs down and then in towards the heads. So if you massage this section here, you will be breaking up the whacks in there and dogs generally quite like that. When you have done that for a couple of a seconds, you need to take some cotton wool and just wipe that in, you could push that in with your fingers as far as you can go. You are not going to cause any damage, you are never going to get your finger around the corner and in towards there, so just wipe out there and wipe out any whacks.
You can use cotton wool buds but you need to be a bit more careful because a cotton wool bud could go a bit too dip. So the tip here is just to keep them going vertically down, so just in this direction, don't then move them around the corner and go into ear junk. So you can use cotton wool bud but you don't go in further than the tip of the cotton wool bud and don't go around the corner of the ear canal because you could cause trouble. Now if you want to avoid, if your dog has got an inflamed ear if so, but it is not responding to your cleaning you do need to get him to the vet and your vet will take an auroscope like this, it will have a look in your dog's ear just like this, there is a magnifying lens there and I can just spot it, if there is anything like a grass seed or if there is mice or if there is an ear infection in there and your vet can treat your dog accordingly.
But overall in conclusion with your dog's ears to keep them in good shape you need to check them regularly whenever you groom your dog, you need to pluck out any hair that is growing in the ear to keep them nice and fresh. You need to clean them if there is a build of whacks using cotton wool and potentially ear buds and if there is a problem if you are worried, if your dog's ear is sore, if they are red or they are bothering the dog, straight down the vet and then follow all those tips and you shouldn't have too many trouble.
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