Ear disease is one of the most common reasons dogs are taken to a vet, one of the most painful conditions a dog can have, and the one owners most often try to manage at home with the wrong product. A dog's ear canal is L-shaped and deep, which is why what you can see tells you very little and why poking about in it does harm.
The three signs
- Shaking the head, or tilting it to one side
- Scratching at the ear, or rubbing that side of the face along furniture and the floor
- A smell, which is the one owners notice from a distance and dismiss as doggy
Add to those: discharge, redness inside the flap, heat, pain when the ear is touched, reluctance to have the head handled, and a dog that has become grumpy about being stroked on one side. In severe cases, a head tilt, loss of balance or unusual eye movement, which needs seeing the same day.
An ear infection hurts a great deal. A dog that has stopped wanting its head touched is not being difficult.
Why it keeps coming back
This is the part that matters. Recurrent ear infections are rarely a hygiene problem. They are usually the visible end of an underlying cause, and treating the infection without the cause produces a cycle that owners find baffling and expensive.
The usual underlying causes are a short list. Environmental or food allergy, by far the commonest in dogs with repeated ear trouble. Moisture, in swimmers and wet-weather walkers. Anatomy, in breeds with heavy drop ears or very narrow canals.
Then the less frequent ones: a foreign body, particularly a grass seed in summer, and, more rarely, hormonal disease or ear mites, which are more typical in young animals.
If your dog has had three ear infections in a year, the useful conversation with your vet is not about drops. It is about what is driving it.
What a vet does that you cannot
Looks down the canal with an otoscope, to see whether the eardrum is intact. That single point decides treatment: some cleaning solutions and some medications are not safe if the drum is perforated, and you cannot know from outside.
Takes a sample and looks at it, because yeast, bacteria and mites are treated differently and look identical to an owner.
Prescribes something specific, and in painful cases sedates the dog to clean the ear properly before treatment, which is often the step that makes the difference.
Cleaning: when and how
Healthy ears do not need routine cleaning. Over-cleaning irritates the canal and creates exactly the environment that causes problems. Clean when your vet has told you to, with the product they recommended, and follow their schedule.
If you are cleaning: fill the canal with the solution, massage the base of the ear for several seconds so you hear it working, let the dog shake its head, then wipe the visible part of the ear with cotton wool or gauze. Never insert a cotton bud into the canal, which pushes debris deeper and risks damage.
Do not use water, vinegar, alcohol, olive oil or anything else recommended in a forum. Alcohol on inflamed skin is extremely painful, and oily products trap moisture and debris.
The drying habit
In this climate, water is the practical enemy. After swimming in the Alzette, after a rain-soaked forest walk, after a bath: dry the ear flap and the visible opening with a soft towel, and let the dog shake. Drop-eared breeds, spaniels, retrievers, hounds, have less airflow and are the ones that develop problems days after a lovely weekend.
Keep the coat around the ear trimmed if your groomer recommends it for your breed. Whether to pluck hair from inside the canal is contested and depends on the individual dog: ask your vet rather than assuming it is routine maintenance.
Grass seeds, the summer emergency
From roughly June, dry grass seeds work into ears on walks and migrate inwards. The presentation is dramatic and unmistakable: a dog that was fine at the start of the walk and is suddenly shaking its head violently, pawing at one ear, crying or running in circles.
That is a same-day appointment. A seed removed that afternoon is a five-minute procedure; one left for a week may require sedation and can damage the eardrum.
The routine that prevents most of it
- Lift the flap and look inside once a week. You are looking for pink, clean and odourless
- Dry the ears after water and after wet walks
- Check for seeds after every summer walk in dry grass, in the ears, the armpits and between the toes
- Keep parasite prevention up to date
- Treat repeated infections as a signal, and investigate the cause
- Finish prescribed courses even when the dog seems better, because stopping early is the commonest reason these relapse
Handling, which makes all of this possible
A dog that accepts having its ears handled is a dog you can check weekly, treat at home and take to a vet without a struggle. Build it with food in short sessions while the dog is well: touch the ear, pay; lift the flap, pay; look inside, pay.
A dog whose ears are only ever touched when they already hurt learns exactly the wrong lesson, and by then you need two people and a muzzle for something that should take ten seconds.
If someone else walks your dog, ask them to report head shaking or scratching on the day rather than at the end of the week. It is one of the few problems where a day or two genuinely changes the outcome.
General information for dog owners in Luxembourg, not veterinary or legal advice. For your own dog, ask your vet, a qualified behaviourist or your commune. How this journal is written and checked.
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