Oh My Dog!

obsessed with dogs

I hate my dog’s allergies but not as much as I hate his ear infections.

Among the things I dread most with Cooper is this: an ear infection.

And, here we are.

Cooper and his ear infections

We haven’t been to the vet yet, but I’m nearly 100% certain he has an ear infection. He started shaking his head and pawing at his ears a couple days ago. I looked, and his left ear was pretty gunky. It’s a Whole Big Thing to clean Cooper’s ears. He flips out.

Over the past couple days, we’ve been doing treats + headlock + cotton ball soaked in solution. He tucks his tail and shakes and attempts to run and hide from us. He yelps. He flails. It’s torture. For him and for us. In fact, last night took it to a whole new level and actually snapped his teeth, which broke my heart.

But, we battled him to clean his ears with the wild hope that it was just dirt, that it would clear up. But, two days of fighting, and it almost instantly refills. It’s an infection. I know it must be insanely painful for him to have these infections. I know it must be scary for a him, high-strung nervous dog, to deal with this ear situation. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. He just knows it hurts. But there is literally no way around it.

If history is any indication, we’re on the cusp of his serious seasonal allergy attack. Along with the ears, yesterday I noted he’s started licking his feet, a sure sign of impending allergic doom, and his eyes have been little faucets. I want to get him on this supposed miracle allergy drug called Apoquel, but they under-produced the pill and have put clinics on a waitlist. As of last fall, we were first in line for it if our clinic got any in, so when he sees the vet, we’re going to make sure we’re still queued up for that. I have a lot of hope for that drug, to be honest, because it’s pretty much the only/last option for him, even though I don’t think it would affect his ear situation.

Incidentally, this is the first time our new vet here will have to deal with Cooper and his ears… the last two times were in Louisiana, and before that, we had a different vet in Indiana. I’m going to give him his anti-anxiety supplement before we go in the hopes that it’ll take some of the edge off. No joke, last time he had to have his ear swabbed, it took four people. Four. To swab his ear.

So, I have that to look forward to.

Depending on how his vet visit goes, I may or may not have fingers to type any longer so this may be my last post-HA!

Anyway, super, super sorry for the gripe fest! I know many of you deal with similar issues–allergies, fears, health stress, etc.–so here’s hoping your summer season is off to a better start than Cooper’s!

Healthy New Year: Natural ear wash for dogs

Back in November, I wrote about Cooper’s resistance – okay, flat-out panic, to be totally honest – to having his ears cleaned. He. Flipped. Out. At the time it made us realize two things: First, we HAD to get better about cleaning their ears regularly. And, second, we needed to train this just like we did with cutting nails.

But first we needed to get a good cleaning product. I find a lot of the chemicals in grooming products to be pretty scary. I wanted to find a natural ear wash for dogs that I felt would do the job and be safe. So, when Natural Paws contacted me about their sprayable ear wash, EARoma ThEARapy, I was totally on board. You may already be familiar with this brand if you’ve looked for solutions to hot spots or cracked pads because they have several popular paw care products.

We tested the product on Emmett and Lucas. (At Coop’s annual, he had a bit of yeast in his ears, so we had him on a prescription cleaner until just this week.)

natural ear wash for dogs

It was super simple to use, just a little spray followed by a quick swipe with a cotton ball. It worked really well on both of their ears. It seems to actually help keep their ears from getting dirty since we’ve been using it more regularly. And, it’s non-toxic, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal (a big problem around here), plus it’s alcohol free, which we need for Emmett’s super sensitive skin.

Also, I know this isn’t as important to the dogs as it is to me… It smells really nice!

And, thanks to the generosity of the folks at Natural Paws, we have a bottle of the sprayable ear wash for one lucky reader!

To enter, use the Rafflecopter widget below (or, if you’re in a reader or reading via email, you have to click the link).

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you, Natural Paws, for offering us this opportunity to try and give away a bottle of EARoma ThEARapy!

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Some things just can’t be pleasant

We have our new Everest.

Before I get into the details, I will say first that Cooper does have his annual exam coming up, so we’re going to have the vet take a good, hard look at his ear to rule out infection, hearing problems, etc. If I thought there was something really wrong, I’d get him in much sooner. 

Cooper’s right ear is our next challenge. His ear gets seriously grody.

Every week, we need to clean that sucker out. I’m sure it’s because of the drainage from his allergies (sorry, I know that’s gross) because his eye leaks, too, and this only became a problem after we moved to Louisiana.

But the real issue here isn’t the grossness of cleaning out his ear every few days.

The real issue is his reaction to us cleaning his ear.

To say “he flips out” grossly undermines the extent of his mania.

I can’t even pinpoint how it started, but it’s bad. He is terrified – tail tucked and full-body quivering – he tries to get away. He flails. He bucks. He whips his head back and forth, and not in a pop-rock-Willow-Smith kind of way. More like a deranged possessed demon kind of way.

It’s been getting progressively worse with each weekly cleaning to the point that last night, we gave up. I put the cleaner back in the drawer. I put the cotton swabs on the bathroom counter. And I tried to give Cooper a little back rub, but he wouldn’t come anywhere near me.

Today, I ran some errands and came home to this:

"Try cleaning my ears NOW!"
“Try cleaning my ears NOW!”

I’m honestly at a loss about what to do for a few reasons: Unlike peanut butter plate, we can’t do a whole series of gradual desensitizations because we don’t need to! He’s TOTALLY FINE with us rubbing his ears. In fact, he’s totally fine with us rubbing his ears with a tissue. He only flips out when solution is involved. We’ve tried three different solutions and a vinegar/water mixture.

After the horror of last night’s attempt, John and I had a long conversation. The central question: Can we find a way to make all things pleasant? Or is this a situation where a headlock is our only option? I need to put some thought into a possible approach because I don’t want it to be miserable/scary for him. I don’t want him to flip out and flail and try to get away from us. But, is it like a kid eating broccoli? Or getting a shot? You just have to suck it up and make it happen?

Sigh.

Have you encountered this? Any suggestions? Is there anything your dog HATES but has to do regardless?