Let's be honest: dogs scratch themselves.
They impress us with their flexibility; they seem to be almost made of rubber at times based on the way they can contort themselves to get in just the right position to scratch a seemingly unattainable itch. Perhaps one of the dog's favorite anatomical locations to scratch is the ear, and given that their lack of opposable thumbs makes wielding a Q-tip impractical, who can blame them?
But when scratching at the ears goes from an occasional activity to a near-constant cacaphony of jangling tags and nails raking over skin, trouble may be afoot. This may signal the presence of an ear infection. Dog's ear canals are shaped differently from ours; they first head downward and then curve and turn inward toward the brain. This makes it difficult to see exactly what's going on inside your dog's ear just by flipping up the floppy part, called the pinna, and taking a look. Vets know how to use a special tool called an otoscope to see all the way into the ear canal to the ear drum, and thorough examination is required to determine why your dog is scratching so much. What I often see when I look down there is goop — quite possibly smelly, and often completely obscuring the view. I also see the redness and irritation that's got your dog so worked up.
I usually take a sample of the goop and look at it under a microscope. This is an important step, because knowing what's causing the infection — typically an overgrowth of yeast or bacteria — tells me what medications to use to treat it. Getting the ear clean is key at this point, because whatever medications I prescribe need to land on the actual ear canal, and not the goop, to be effective. Particularly tough infections often need drugs that are given by mouth in addition to topical therapies. It's critically important to bring your dog back for recheck exams to be sure that the infection is cured before treatment is stopped.
Any dog can get an ear infection once in a lifetime. But chronic ear infections are frustrating for owners and painful for dogs. Some dogs are predisposed because they swim a lot, and a moist, dark ear canal makes a great starter home for a family of yeast or bacteria. Dogs with short noses can have poorly formed ear canals that are narrow, and these are also excellent breeding grounds for infection. Allergies to something in the environment or even to food, and foreign objects like grass seed heads are often to blame.
It's important to understand that the longer ear infections go untreated, the more difficult they are to cure. Chronic inflammation in the canal leads to thickening and scarring. Sometimes long courses of expensive antibiotics are needed. When medical treatment options have been exhausted, surgery may be the only option.
Christie Long is a veterinarian at the VCA Fort Collins Animal Hospital. Call her at (970) 204-4567 or send email to email@example.com.