[Acadia]

Hi everyone.

I have two Maltese dogs who are both 8 years old. A while ago, they went to the vet and, while there, the hair inside their ears was pulled. Since then, their ears are always filled with wax, are inflamed, and smell. My mom has started cleaning their ears with alcohol and peroxide. (She dips a cotton ball in the mixture and tries to gently clean their ears). It was working on our oldest dog, Jamie, for a while but her ears have started to become inflamed again and wax is building up again too. We didn't see any improvement with our other dog, Lisa.

Is there a reason for their ears to be like this? Is there any way we can stop this from happening?

Thanks.

[CinnamintStick]

Sounds like ear mites or a yeast infection. Since more than one dog has this problem it is most likely mites. It is not caused by removing hair from the ears. Read http://www.petplace.com/dogs/ear-mit...ogs/page1.aspx

Here is another good one on ear care. http://www.workingdogs.com/doc0079.htm

[Acadia]

Thanks for the information. It helped a lot and confirmed what my mom thought.

[agility collie mom]

You need to take the dogs back to the vet. The vet can do an ear smear and tell you what is in the ear. If it is ear mites they will see them under the microscope and prescribe the right meds. If you just start putting ear mite meds in without a diagnosis you may irritate the ear further. How often are you cleaning the ears. If you clean too often it will make the ears inflamed and red (especially if you are using alcohol.) You need to use an ear cleaner made for dogs or the blue ear wash in the stickies here. As the temperatures and humidity rises the chance of ear infections in dogs rises too.