"Dogs are not our whole lives, but they help make our lives whole."
-Roger Caras

Copyright Notice

Under Construction, but still has some good info. More will come later!

Cleaning Ears

Info coming soon

Ear Infection Treatment Ideas

Rubbing alcohol controls/kills most bacteria (in the case of a bacterial infection) and dries out the ears. So if you ever suspect some kind of infection coming on in the ears, rubbing alcohol by itself is "very often" all that is needed to kill the organism causing the infection. I use 70% and they don't cry like it hurts....but if their infection is bad, they'll run around grunting and rubbing their ears on the floor, so I know it is uncomfortable. They quickly get over it, though.

If their infection IS really bad and the skin in the ears is broken, the 70% will hurt. I have heard you can find 50% rubbing alcohol (but I've never seen it), and wonder if that would be better in bad cases.

Less uncomfortable is witch hazel, but it's slower to work. I have wondered about using witch hazel for a few days and then switching to rubbing alcohol if I ever run into that.

HOMEMADE/DIY EAR TREATMENT: 

Here's the full recipe for the solution my sister told me about, which comes from bloodhound people (bloodhounds have long ears and can have lots of ear issues, so those people know what to do!):

• 8 oz rubbing alcohol

• 8 drops gentian violet (very purple and stains, so be careful with this bottle)

• 1 tbsp boric acid or borax laundry powder

I had rubbing alcohol and Borax already, so used that for an ear infection, and it seems to have worked. I did it twice per day for about a week and then tried to remember at least once a day for another week. I added the gentian violet, but don't think it really did anything extra...though as a natural antibiotic, it may have helped the healing.  Note: The Borax laundry powder doesn't dissolve in rubbing alcohol, so I have to shake it and then squirt some in quickly, before the powder settles out). I don't know if boric acid is still able to be purchased anywhere (it used to be common, and people mixed it with sugar to make ant poison), but if I had that, I'd use it instead of the borax powder.

Another Option:  My human doctor also told me that mixing rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide 50% each is good for human/children's ears if they get "swimmer's ear," so I've used that on dogs a few times.