excessive shaking

Question
Hi, I have a female 16 months old miniature schnauzer (lola).
At the moment we are traveling through US by car and we are in Florida. She developed an episode of excessive head shaking un the way and is becoming more and more aggravating; she hut the tips of her ears to the point of permanent bleeding and it gets worse with every shaking. She had a similar behavior last summer, in Canada; we went to the vet and we have been told there is not much he can do about it (actually nothing, but wait to get fixed by itself). Diet? Yes, we had a change in diet (this time only) because I feed her fresh home cooked meals at home and she had to eat dog food on the road (Caesar and Beneful, different flavors- since she likes any)). Any idea? I red something about benadryl for dogs but I am not sure this is an allergy. She has obviously echy ears but she appears to be clean inside.

Answer
If your dog has itchy ears, something is wrong! She either has some sort of ear infection or some foreign object (dirt) in there, or... maybe she is like a dog I had many years ago. He was VERY sensitive, in all ways, and totally could not tolerate it if the hair inside his ears got long enough so that the hairs touched each other and started tickling him.

If the vet can find no problem with her ears, try keeping the hair pulled out so that the hairs inside never have a chance to grow long enough to touch (and keep those ears shaved down). Her problem may be something as simple as ear hair.

As to food, what you are feeding on the road is not good. While I am not an advocate of raw diets, this might be better for your "home-cooked-food" dog. Try Nature's Variety, which is raw, frozen patties. Do a search for stores in your area: http://www.naturesvariety.com/locator