January 7th, 2011
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No matter how careful you are, moisture will collect in your dog’s ears after a bath. For long-haired, floppy-eared dogs, ear dampness can be a problem. To help the ears dry up and to avoid moisture related infections and yeast troubles, gently turn his ears inside out (it does not hurt or annoy) and pull both ears back behind his head loosely. Using a rubber band, gently but firmly, using only the fur at the tips and avoiding the skin flap, rubber band his ears open and back behind his head. In a few hours, the ear canals will have dried out and you may release the ears from the rubber band.
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Hi,
thanks for the brilliant tip, this might help with the “hotspots” on my dogs ears.
I cannot believe you would actually tell people to use rubber bands. Sure it seems like helpful, harmless advice, but from what I have witnessed most people do not use common sense!!!!
this is a good tip,will certainly help me
Hmmm…we used a scrunchie to tie our dog’s ears up when she ate. She didn’t seem to mind at all!
Growing up we had a Spaniel.
When she ate, to prevent ears flopping into food, Mum used a clothes pin (be SURE it is only on fur tips of ears) to clip ears behind her (Dogs) head, thus keeping them out of dish.
One should monitor dog during meal as ears can drop down over eyes like a blind-fold!
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Gillian
I like the modern, “scrunchie” better.
Gillian
My dog has floppy ears, but really short hair, after her bath, she surprisingly lays still so i can clean and dry her ears with a cotton ball.. can i put a blow dryer on low, and dry her ears.
There is NO WAY my Irish Setter would walk around for a couple of minutes let alone hours with her ears rubber bande together – what a stupid idea !
huh….why not just use Epi Otic…takes like two seconds and it won’t make your dog bang around his head to get these rubber bands off…
Brenda Lee prefers a child’s headband (adjusted for her neck size by tying a knot in it) to hold her ear’s back. She wears it at mealtime to prevent her ear hair from getting in her food, and I always give her a treat when I put it on her at ear cleaning time so it’s always associated with good things. It’s never a problem and she’ll wear it without complaint until I remove it. Airing out her ears periodically does help prevent/encourage healing of ear infections.
Our cocker used to have a lot of trouble with ear infections and we tried the scrunchy to keep his ears up when he ate but it didn’t do any good for the water bowl unless we kept his ears up all the time. We found some bone shaped dishes made for long ear dogs and they work great. No more scrunchies for our boy! Check it out: http://www.dogboneinc.com
What a great idea! Both the rubber bands and the scrumchy. I need to do this.