I figured this could go in GQ, but I guess it’s sort of a matter of opinion and experience, right?
My dog’s always been prone to ear infections - years ago he actually had surgery to help with them, which sort of redirected his right ear canal. Since then he’s had a lot fewer ear infections, but he’s got one now and the vet gave me, sigh, drops. I hate giving him drops. It’s freaking impossible and he doesn’t even get any benefit from them. He’s a little dog, a Westie, but he’s a lot stronger than he looks (even at his advanced age) and he’s just not as handleable as a lot of dogs seem to be. If I just manhandled him the way the vet does I’d be missing some fingers!
So here’s what generally happens - I sidle up to him, he rolls around in my lap to get his belly rubbed and I go for the ear. I’ll get a couple of drops in the general earward direction before he escapes and shakes his head and rubs it on the carpet - in other words, there’s no way he’s getting his ear medicated. Give it a couple days and he won’t even let you near the infected ear because he knows what’s coming, so when you sidle up to him he puts his right ear to the ground or runs away.
So how do you all do it? Reponses along the lines of “just grab his head and do it, dumbass” will be met with an invitation to lose a finger or two to a very pissed off grumpy old dog. There’s got to be a way to do this that minimizes stress on both of us and gets his ear fixed, right? The vet said that if it was absolutely necessary she’d give me pills, but that the drops are better. He has no problem with pills, but it’s embarassing to tell her I can’t get the drops in and have her just grab his head and put the drops in. (You should see her poke at his teeth, too. Sigh.)
Well, my neighbor’s got an eighty pound dog that she can’t give ear drops to either. She comes across the street and lets me manhandle her. I’ve got a nice scar from a claw for my troubles. Next time, I’m trimming her nails first (the dog’s, not the neighbor’s.)
But for practicality, if he’s that hard to medicate, I’d try installing a soft muzzle on him, wrapping him in a towel so he can’t claw you, and manhandling away. Sure, he’ll hate you for an hour or so, but would you rather he lose his hearing? Sneaking up on them has never worked for me, at least not for more than one ear one time.
Sounds like you need to get control of your dog. I have an 80 lb Lab. He gets ear infections. He hates ear drops worse than anything in the world. It sometimes becomes a wrestling match (we’re working on that), but he’d never, ever bite me. I’m about as pro-dog as they come, but biting’s not acceptable. Time for some training.
I wish I could help, but when I’ve had to medicate dog ears the dogs in question would just sit there and look sad or something. And it’s a good thing, because they’re about 75 pounds each.
Why don’t you ask the vet to teach you to do it the way she does?
Well, sounds like the first thing you need to do is let him know you are the boss, not him. If you’ve let him get away with stuff for years, though, that might be hard to impossible now that he’s old.
If he’s small enough you can try using a cat muzzle - covers the eyes too.
I know, I know, we never trained him well enough, but we’ve let him get away with it for years and he’s an old dog now. It’s entirely my fault and I deserve to get bitten, but I think we’d all be better off if I didn’t and he got his ear drops.
I think the vet gets away with it because 1) he’s in a strange environment on a scary table, and 2) the vet is in charge and I, obviously, am not, so much. Also 3) I think sometimes maybe they trank them a bit because I can’t explain it otherwise.
I think **Zsofia ** has the right of it. When I hauled my 20 lb Maine Coon to the vet a couple times to learn how to get his claws clipped, he just lay there and let the vet snip away, even when she had to pull his paw around at weird angles to get to his extra thumbclaws.
At home, I basically have to sit on him to hold him still long enough for me to do it.
i sneak up on nod the naughty as she sleeps. sometimes she will sense the dreaded ear stuff coming, sometimes not. i usually get one ear done before she is fully awake, the other ear before she can react.
she will leap off the back of the couch and is on the other side of the room, by the time i can say “treats”! she will wait for me to put down the treat and leave the area before she will come over and eat the treat.
