Itchy ears in Cairns

Question
I'm just wondering if it's common for cairns to have ear problems?  What would you suggest for ear care?  I have 2 cairns, a 5 year old female and a 3 year old male and they both have itchy ears quite often.  Normally one ear is worse than the other and they scratch and shake their heads repeatedly but there is no bad odor, so I don't think it is a ear infection.  I've taken them to the vet numerous times for this and sometimes it's a yeast infection and sometimes it's nothing... they give me ear drops if it's a yeast infection and it gets better but in a couple months they are back to itching and shaking their ears.  I've been told different things by different vets about how to clean their ears and how often, so I'm just not sure what is the best way.  The last vet told me that cleaning their ears too often would kill all the good bacteria in their ears.  Plus the directions on different ear cleaners seem to all say something different about how and how often to clean the ears.  I've also heard that you can pull the hair out of dog's ears to improve air flow and to help keep the ears dry, but that seems very painful!  Have you ever had ear problems with your cairns?  Do you have any suggestions for me?  Thanks for your help.

Answer
Jenny -

Almost without exception cairns coming into rescue have ear infections, and they are almost always yeast.  There is a good reason why this is the case.  Cairns are particularly prone to food sensitivities.  Combined with treating the infection, a change of food to a kibble that contains no corn, no wheat, no soy and no by-products will likely solve the problem permanently within a few weeks.

Now, as to treating the ears.  It is true that cleaning them too often when there is **no** infection can be a problem, but it's also a problem if you are not completely getting rid of the infection.

A vital piece of information that few vets remember to tell people is that the layout of a dog's ear is different than a human's.  In people, you have to worry about going in too far and hurting the ear drum.  Not so in dogs.  Their ear canal has a +/- 90 degree bend in it - Making it virtually impossible to clean too deeply.

Plucking the hair out of the ear is really important, and cutting it just doesn;t work.  If you grab just a tiny number of hairs and yank really fast (as opposed to gradually), and do that once a day to each dog, you will have them cleared out in no time.

I use an ear flush called Oticalm.  I put a bunch in the ear.  Reach down at the base of the ear and rub it in a circle.  If you have enough in, you will hear it squooshing around.  Then wait a couple of minutes and thoroughly clean with q-tips.  Don't stop until they come out clean. And remember to go deep.

Then you put the medicine in.

I would recommend a change of food, along with plucking ear hairs, as the best preventive measures for your dogs.  That's what I (and the large rescue I am involved with) do and it fixes the vast majority of cases.

Good luck and let me know how you make out.

-Beth