hi uh welcome back uh to our youtube
channel this is reed stevens at ellicott
small animal hospital
and we're going to talk today about ear
cleaning maybe uh recently you are in
for an ear cleaning
or ear disease it's not uncommon
especially in dogs
probably well next to obesity and dental
disease
probably the third most common problem
we see at the animal hospital
incidentally cats very rare in cats
and and a very different approach so do
not take anything i'm recommending for
your dog
uh and apply it to your cat um bad
things will happen and your cat will not
like you
um the um when it comes to ear disease
it in
dogs it's important to understand
the anatomy of the ear the um
the dog's ear is actually very much very
much like ours
it starts off here would would be the
brain
and and just very close to that is the
inner ear
the middle ear and then the eardrum
right here and then the outer ear
the outer ear is very much like ours in
that it goes straight out
almost horizontally towards the outside
of the head the dog's head
what is different is just after their
ear canal gets outside their skull it
turns up
and that's what puts their ears up on
top of their head and we're the only
thing that puts their ears on the top of
their head so they have what we call a
vertical canal this vertical canal the
problem with this design is while it
helps them find out where
they might hear a mouse or somebody
approaching your house
they can't get this
well they they have natural processes
that that help clean this horizontal
canal
but it doesn't work as well as it should
sometimes and it's overcome
by debris or aggravated through
allergies often food allergies we'll get
back to that
but debris catches
debris builds up dirt wax
things in the environment um even twigs
in california grasslands are a real
problem unfortunately not
here in buffalo but debris gets down in
there
and once debris is down there you get a
warm moist environment
and from the moist environment becomes a
yeast infection
people ask me how the yeast get in there
yeast is everywhere there's a warm moist
environment so
the yeast starts off and the yeast is
followed by bacteria often of cocci
bacteria
and that is followed by a rod like
bacteria and those are the bad ones the
the
pseudomonas e coli are bad rod bacteria
so you want to
want to definitely stop it before you
get to that point so the real point is
is how do we clean a dog's ear how do we
prevent these infections well
an office visit is is very often
required because
when when you're when you're getting uh
you're cleaning the year at home and
you're still getting debris you're not
getting yours cleaned out
um we really need to take a look with
our with our
otoscope with our equipment to make sure
what's going on in there
second thing we'll like to do is is go
into the air and take a cytology
we'll we'll lay this debris out on a
slide
test it for what kind of bacteria what
kind of yeast
are infecting the ear and we'll make a
appropriate diagnosis
as you can see here these are all the
different ear medications we carry
and we choose each one of these based on
what
is appropriate for your pet and what the
what the infection actually is
uh you can't just guess over the phone
what is what the best medication is and
that's what's
important to come in so when you're
cleaning the air
um what i like to say is is
dilution is the solution to pollution
and what we have in the bottom of your
dog's ear is pollution
but let me go back before i go right to
how to clean the air let me go back here
and say why it's important
this is a model of an ear which i like
this is the normal ear the hor remember
the horizontal canal the vertical canal
and this is a is an ear canal that's
actually been diseased this is
classic eight-year-old cocker spaniel
that
ear has gone left unchecked the
whole canal wall is swollen similar to
you say scratch the bat scratch the back
of your hand it swells up a little bit
if you get a cut there well this is an
ear canal that's been scratched
and scratched and scratched repeatedly
over eight years by the infection itself
irritated i should say by the infection
and that ear canal has closed down you
could not
even put a q-tip down into this ear
canal because it's so closed off
and this dog is one already deaf two
already in a lot of pain um and
and and smells pretty bad to boot so the
only solution for an ear like this is
actually surgically go in
and this is a very advanced surgery
something we don't do at our hospital we
refer you to a board-certified surgeon
for this
and they would go in and and take out
all of this material
right up against the brain case um not a
small piece of surgery
it can be done very safely but we'll
tell you also it can be
thousands of dollars per year to have
this done so
something you want to avoid for the sake
of your wallet and for the sake of your
pet
so how do we clean an air well the first
thing you want to do again get back to
the dilution being the solution to
pollution
um we want a good quality ear cleaner uh
we like this ear cleaner so much we put
our name on it
um it just it's an air cleaner that
works it's basic it's not
expensive and what's what's important
um about this it has the the drying
action
of an alcohol it has the soap action
a cleaning action of a soap and it has
the acidifying action of say a vinegar
so
these are things that you're not going
to get with homemade solutions
um flesh it smells a lot better um so
this is something that yeah we sell for
12 13
and it's it's it i think it's well worth
it first thing i'd recommend with this
ear cleaner is that you
warm it up uh this is something you
don't hear from a lot of veterinarians
but but i have found this very helpful
um one it's more comfortable for you
even more important it's more
comfortable for your dog
but most importantly when you're talking
about cleaning out this this this debris
that's down here the bottom ear canal
what's a better way to clean something
than do it in warm water
uh or a warm solution wax
down there easier to break that up so it
and it works much better
we are advocates for very aggressive
cleaning
but not so often do not clean your ear
once a day clean it no more than twice a
week
you can talk about maintenance once a
week to once a month maybe once a week
in the summer time for a dog swims a lot
once a month in in in the wintertime
when things are dryer
so washing the wash in the air
poppy come here this is my dog poppy
she's our model today
she's 12 years old she no dog really
likes this
um but i want to show you how we're
going to do this okay
now her ears of course are very clean
being the veterinarian's dog her ears
are very clean but
you know we're looking right down the
inside of the air one thing to remember
though this is the oh we do have some
dribbling on a good job
pop you got some debris in there we got
to clean this here so um you'll notice
you can take your finger
and go very safely in this labrador all
the way down to
to really almost the second knuckle i've
got my whole finger down in that ear and
and
you can see on my finger there is some
debris so we're going to clean that out
um so there's nothing you're not going
to hurt the dog at all by going right
down in there
so first thing you do is dilute okay
so i'm going to take the ear bottle and
tip it right up oh
sorry i forgot to mention so warming it
up how do you warm it up
you can do it in a warm bowl of water
but you can also do it
in the microwave took the whole bottle
open the cap and put the whole bottle in
the microwave
for no more than about 15 seconds when
you're doing that
and this is important take your wrist
let me get back to this here
i'm going to go so shake it up really
well after you warm it up
and test down your wrist making sure
it's not too hot very important
i did have a client who actually burnt
the spot on her wrist
after warming up for after warming up a
quarter of a bottle a quarter of a
bottle over
um 30 seconds so that's too much is the
bottle
as the bottle gets shorter you have to
decrease the warming time all right so
we're going to
flood again and massage
now if you can hear that sound that
squishing sound that that
dishwasher-like sound
that's that that's what what my mentor
would call the sound of success
that's where we break up that debris we
floated up so i'm filling that ear up
three or four times
dog poppy and you can see the debris
in that ear starting to float up
sometimes
when you get good at it you can lay the
ear back like this
and even put more in it keeping the head
tipped up
and that that is washing that debris
that the fluids washing in and out of
the air and washing that debris up and
out
of that vertical canal and then the
horizontal canal
you need to liquefy these dogs have had
debris in the air for a long period of
time
that that debris gets dry and hard
and you're never going to get it up
without uh you're never going to get it
up without
giving it a good warm uh a good thorough
cleaning
now we send each bottle a cleaner home
with a bag of cotton and you want to
take a big
i like big wads of cotton i find that
little cotton balls
are are not helpful they're dangerous
they don't hold enough fluid and they
can get lost in a dog's ear see there's
a big piece coming out there
um then um so after you've
flooded the air three or four times and
and then at the end wiped it out with
cotton
i like to take a q-tip standard q-tip
uh your q-tip is a hormone fine and just
get the nooks and crannies okay that's
what they call the
english muffins nooks and crannies now
let's see so just down just down where
you can see
never losing sight of the end of the
q-tip people ask me can i use a q-tip to
clean my dog's ears
well you can but if you start going
down here you you're not gonna i'll show
you exactly where you're going
you're going down you're going down here
okay so you're not going to get to the
eardrum okay so you're not in danger of
you of a puncturing eardrum like you
would be in a pu
human but you will pack debris down into
the ear canal
like gunpowder in a cannon just waiting
for it to blow up okay
so that's just not not a good idea
okay um oh so then after you've cleaned
the ear
um there's gonna be a medication
application okay
now when you medicate the ear
i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna this is
one of our newest products on the market
and we really like we've had seen great
success with it
this product is called ezodic and what
we
like about it for two reasons one the
medication that's in it
works really well
you pause it for a second