From Floppy to Pointy, How to Clean Your Dog’s Ears

 

All owners have had that moment of worry that their dog is unable to hear anymore. Whilst this is often just an issue of selective hearing from our often-temperamental furbabies, it is important to take good care of a dog’s ears to maintain their hearing.

 

 

Why you should clean your dog’s ears

 

Like humans many dogs will see their hearing ability decrease as they get older. Since we want the best for our pets we can try to limit or even prevent these effects with proper care.

 

It is recommended that a dog’s ears are cleaned at least once a month. This is important in trying to prevent ear infections. Ear infections in a dog are caused by an overgrowth of bacteria or yeast within the ear canal. These can be very painful and irritating for a dog.

 

Symptoms of an ear infection include –

• Shaking their head.
• Red Swelling
• Discharge
• Scabs in the ear or side of the face

 

As the infection gets worse it can cause temporary loss of hearing, whilst an inability to quickly solve the issue can have long term effects on their hearing.

 

 

How to clean a dog’s ears

 

Whilst once a month cleaning is ideal it can be useful to do this as part of your brushing routine. To begin with, you will need to remove excess hair from the ear canal. This only needs to be done when there is a lot of build up so to allow you access to remove earwax. We would recommend this be done by your dog’s groomer as if done incorrectly it can cause harm.

 

 

Should you wish to learn how to do this yourself, we recommend using Christies Surgical Ear Forceps & Tweezers and Groom Professional Thornit Ear Powder  for this. To begin you will apply your powder which will loosen the hair as well as making it dry and easy to remove. With the tweezers you can then gently remove hair which is blocking access to their ear.

 

 

The next step will be to clean the ear and remove wax. Using an ear cleaner will soften the wax and make it much easier to remove. A popular choice is the Wahl Easy Ear Cleaner or the Groom Professional Ear Wash . For those who would rather use more natural products there is also an ear cleaner by Groom Professional Fresh .

 

 

After carefully applying some cleaner into the dogs ear you will need to gently massage the base to ensure that it distributes all around the ear canal. After waiting at least a minute for the wax to dissolve, you will need something to remove the wax, such as the Show Tech Cotton Buds . With these you can gently pull out the visible wax, being careful not to go to deep or push the wax further in, instead gently pulling it out.

 

 

To finish we would recommend cleaning the outside of the ear to ensure a thorough job. The Groom Professional Ear Wipes are perfect for this and will make sure all the potential dirt and bacteria around the ear is cleaned away.

 

 

Now all that is left is to give your brave pooch a big hug! Should you wish to view our full range of ear cleaning products you can see them here. If you have any questions regarding ear care or our other product ranges our customer care team is always on hand to provide you the best support and advice.