Hi,
It is very worrying isn't it?
This is what i do. I will try to explain.
1. the bottle-try to desensitise her by rubbing forehead
2. quickly squeeze bottle into the inner ear and close the opening of the ear with outer ear skin by pressing gently with your thumb (I do not know how to explain this..lol) and then gently message the ear so that any air trapped in ear canal can be escaped and the drops will flow down. Otherwise when a dog shakes afterwards, the drops will come out.
3. treat your dog

You can also check youtube "How to give your dog ear drops"
Good Luck

 

That's it? One reply? Out of all the people on this site who have done this common procedure?

By the way, the you tube video was awful -- it shows a person lifting up the ears of a dog who couldn't care less about the drops and squirting them in. So, a useful video if you didn't know what a dog was, or where the dog's ears were... As we all know, the problem, of course, comes in when the dog is NOT completely ambivalent about getting the drops...

Well, here's the technique I have developed on my own over the past few weeks, which seems to work very well.

The key was the addition of a second person. Person A sits down with a bag of treats between their legs. As the dog goes to town on the treats, person A holds the dogs head and opens one ear, enabling person B to get an easy target for the drops. No struggling, no jabbing the dog in the ear with the applicator......the dog hardly even notices the drops.

 

MisterW -

My Lola just got over an ear infection as well and she hated the drops! I would hide the bottle of ear drops (otherwise she'd RUN) and lay her on her side in my lap and fold her ear open (to get ready while I gave her a chewy treat (something to take her a minute, not something she could just gulp down). Then I would quickly inset the bottle and squeeze at the same time, at which point she'd flinch, but since she was on her side... gravity helped ensure the drops traveled into the ear. I would then transfer her to her other side and repeat. Then, one last treat for being good! I did notice that the calmer I was when giving her the drops, the calmer she remained... no excited, "good girl" cryouts or petting parties... keep it as boring as possible witht the exception of the treats.

Also the reason your dog may be getting better with taking the drops (or having the dropper touch her ear) is because the pain from the ear infection is diminishing. So, that may mean she's getting better! Yay! It's usually the first couple of days that are difficult. After that, the pain is subsiding and so does their objection to the drops.

Good luck! Remember, keep the dogs ears dry during and after the bath - water getting in the ear could be causing the infection.

Also, I didn't use any cleaner in my puppy's ear while I was treating her with the antibiotics (orally) and the drops (in her ears). I just let the medicine do it's thing. I started cleaning her hears a few days after finishing with the drops.

 

 

Maybe it's easier for me because my dog is very small..... but she has the same thing, an ear infection and needs to have ear drops applied twice a day for a week.

I sit on the floor with her, hold her body close to me with one arm, and the other arm holds the ear dropper thingy, and also pushes her head towards my body and flips her ear up. It's still a bit of a struggle but she doesn't like it, but after a few seconds of struggling she usually sits still enough long enough for me to squirt it in.

If she is too big or too difficult to do this, I would get a second person to hold her against their body with one arm and restrain the head with the other arm while you squirt the drops in. Ideally dogs would love to have their ears touched, and you could prolly train this given enough time, but when you need to apply the ear drops for medical reasons there just isn't enough time to train it.

 

Unfortunately, with infections sometimes you just have to get the job done and work with ear handling at a later date. Dude had an ear infection (first in his life, 9 years old) and he got drops twice a day. He would tense up so bad his ears would plaster against his head, so I had to have 50 hands to un-clamp his ear, hold his head still, apply the drops and work them into the canal before he shook and sent the drops, the bottle, and myself flying.
FWIW, I've read some really interesting things about Olive Leaf Extract doing wonders for ear infections. You might want to research that as a preventative measure.