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XP: Dog owners - ear problems?
Does anyone here have experience with natural remedies for cleaning dogs' ears or preventing buildup in them? Ever since moving to TX, Kona (our GSD) has had problems with yeast buildup/infections in his ears. I guess with the humidity and allergies it's common. His one ear has been bad for a couple of months now. We went to the vet last time DH had a decent check and $200(!) later nothing has changed. We have been washing the ear daily, but of course after being at SIL's for a week he's in bad shape again. He's miserable and holds that ear horizontal to the ground while scratching and shaking it constantly.
We don't have another $200 to burn at the vet right now. Heck, we don't have $20. We also cannot afford to change him to expensive food. Right now he is on the cheapest lamb and rice I can find (Purina One) as well as all the rice and raw or cooked vegetables he wants. I did some research online and tried washing it with a mixture of apple cidar vinegar and warm water last night. It may have helped a bit but I think it stung him quite a bit. 
I'm going to try this for a while, and I also read a bit of plain yogurt each day might help. Any experience with these or other home remedies for this problem?
Re: XP: Dog owners - ear problems?
Thanks! I've been trying not to go over there too much so I probably would have missed it
our dog gets ear infections ALL THE TIME. we hold on to all the antibiotic/anti-yeast ointments the couple times we have taken him to the vet and still use them when it gets super bad.
i ordered a couple large bottles of ear cleansing solution from 1800 petmeds.com.
2 1-800-PETMEDS 16OZ EAR CLEANSING SOLUTION L (2@12.99) $25.98
they last for a while, so i'm not spending a whole lot all the time. we'll rinse his ears out twice a day - morning and evening. squirt the solution in, stuff a cotton ball in his ear, massage at the base and then let him shake it out. do that a few times until the cotton ball starts to look cleaner. we also trim back his ear hair to keep them aired out. and then we use the antibiotic ointments from the vet for a few days - just put some on a q-tip and gently swab.
hope that helps!!
I hate to say it, but he might have a grain allergy to his food. There are some inexpensive grain-free foods (Nature's Domain at Costco comes to mind) that might help. Usually with grain-free foods you have to feed less quantity, so the cost might even out as you have to buy food less frequently.
You're probably right. We expect our finances to improve in the coming months so we can go back to the better foods, but for the next couple of weeks we are trying our best to treat the symptoms as cheaply as possible.
I think the Nature's Domain at Costco is about $35 for a big 30 lb bag.
I hope that he starts to feel better soon! We've been lucky and (so far - fingers crossed) haven't had any ear issues with our two dogs.
TTC #1 since February 2011
BFP #1 1/14/12 EDD 9/24/12 m/c at 8w4d on 2/20/12
March 2012- Dx with PCOS, started metformin
July 2012- SA completely normal
So sorry your pup is going through this! And yeah, this is definitely a fear of ours that it will get so bad it could impact his inner ear. Ugh. At least after two straight days of the vinegar wash he seems to be holding it more upright. Hopefully we can change his food soon and see if that helps too.