Holistic Care : Grooming : Ear care

We check and clean our dogs' ears on a weekly basis. If there are any recurrent problems, then it is important to check ears daily to make sure there is no buildup. The most common cause of ear problems in dogs is yeast infection. Generally there will be a buildup of brown discharge which smells, well, like yeast. Frequent ear infections can be an indicator of food allergies or hypothyroidism, so you may want to rule those out as causes first. For some more information on canine ear problems, take a look at this article.

My oldest Leonberger would often get brown gunk (yeast) in his ears, especially after a season of swimming, and after using many ear cleaners, we finally struck gold with the Blue Power formula. Even though it contains alcohol, it has worked out very well for us, and we haven't had a single ear problem after switching to weekly cleaning with it. The Gentian Violet in it is a potent anti-fungal agent.

For our weekly sessions, we keep an "ear cleaning" box always at hand containing cotton balls, Q-tips, tissues, and a bottle of the Blue Power Formula. I want to emphasize that the Q-tips are only used to wipe out the tiny grooves in the outer ear which the cotton balls and tissues have a hard time getting clean.

Please be sure to consult your veterinarian first, if your dog has a bad infection or is getting frequent infections, so as to rule out other causes for the problem such as bacteria or mites.