How to Treat a Dog's Ear Infection

Video Transcript

"Let's talk about how to treat your dog with an ear infection. Ear infections are very, very common for dogs to have. It has to be diagnosed by a veterinarian first to find out what's going on in that ear. Could be a yeast infection or a bacterial infection or just lots of inflammation from allergy. So there are lots of different things that we are treating. Once the ear infection is diagnosed, your veterinarian will prescribe you with a type of medication that will treat either bacteria or yeast or both or inflammation of the ear. Ear mites are something that we see a lot of times too, especially in cats, and so your veterinarian will provide you with medication appropriately to treat that. Your veterinarian also may or may not want you to clean the ear first, and the best way to do that is to apply a cleanser to a gauze pad and then with your fingertip go inside the ear very gently and remove any debris that may be there first. After cleaning, then you can apply the medication which generally is going to be maybe take five or ten days, it just depends on what's going on in that ear. But just always be careful. Ears are very sensitive and dogs don't necessarily like you messing with them too much."