Photo 2
The starting point. For our dogs this is an extremely dirty ear!! It is overgrown with hair both on the underside of the ear flap and in the ear canal. As such there is minimal air circulation and a substantial amount of dirt combined with wax has built up over about 3 weeks. Again Martin Zephram, our big boy now 4 years old, is our ever patient model for this photo essay.

Photo 3
I begin by brushing out the ear flap and the area around the ear canal opening. This is important to allow you to see the area that will be cleaned and separates the hair so that plucking will not accidentally “rip out” large masses of hair which will be painful and upsetting to your dog. Keep in mind that this is already a very invasive procedure and you want to minimize the amount of upset to your dog. Plucking only 5-10 hairs at a time goes a long way to reducing their discomfort and stress.

Photo 4
Using a giant sized cotton puff that is “wet” with alcohol I clean the underside of the ear flap to remove “bulk” ear wax/dirt and dry the hair for plucking. Note that I am using my left hand to steady the ear flap and keep it slightly taught” with a very gentle pull. This helps me apply the alcohol where it is needed and prevents it from running onto the head coat. To wet the puff without saturating it I place it over the bottle opening, invert the bottle and slightly reduce pressure on the cotton puff. This allows alcohol to “wick” into the puff without it becoming compressed or saturated. The bottle should be inverted for no more than a couple of seconds and the puff should not drip when the bottle is turned right side up and removed. It may take a few tries to get this right but it really isn’t difficult and it doesn’t use much alcohol.


Next step!