Prevention and Detection of Dog Ear Infections

Ear infections are a fairly common ailment for most dogs -- the problem is, you might not realize that there is a problem until its a painful problem for your dog.

Detection

Do you see your dog shaking it's head a little too often? Does your dog rub it's ears with it's paws, on the carpet, on the furniture, on your leg? Does your dog love it a little too much when you scratch it ears? These are all possible signs of an ear infection.

Did your dog used to love getting it's ears scratched but now shies away from you when you reach for it's ears? That's a sure sign of an ear infection.

Here are two other signs of this particular trouble: You see what looks like dirt in your dogs ears and wonder what its been up to. Your dog has an unusually bad smell -- even shortly after a bath.

That probably isn't dirt in the dogs ears (unless its been messing around in some very dirty places) -- its probably a build-up of ear wax and, if it is ear wax, that's probably also the cause for the mysterious odor.

An excess of smelly ear wax would, in most cases, be caused by inflamed (infected) ceruminous glands (wax glands) in it's ears. When these glands get infected they discharge extra amounts of ear wax. The excess ear wax causes the dogs ears to itch at first, that's why the rubbing and the blissful look when you scratch it's ears. After a while, if you don't spot the problem and get the dog to a vet, the wax buildup will become painful and the dog won't want you to touch its ears and the dog will become listless and probably not want to do anything except lay around -- waiting for the pain to go away.

The scenario described above is a typical outer ear infection and outer ear infections are by far the most common dog ear infections. The medical name is Otits Externa -- simply meaning