Pioneering medication

By Helen Burns | Dated August 31, 2017

How to give your dog ear drops!

Ask your dog to sit. Give them a gentle scratch behind the ears and count the 5 drops of the ear medication as you apply it to your dog’s ear canal.
Wipe the ear drops off the wall, the floor and your face.
Calmly ask your dog to sit as you realise that you can taste the ear drops. Keep your mouth closed next time, and try again.
Talk to your dog in a calm, quiet voice. Gently rub their head until they relax. Bring the ear drops out from behind your back. Count the ear drops again as they fall onto your dog’s head and the floor.
Clean the floor then chase your dog around the house, speaking firmly.
This time, hold the ear drop bottle in your hand for 5 minutes to warm the drops up so that they are more comfortable.
Give your dog a bowl of food, or their favourite treat to eat. While they are distracted, quickly apply the warmed ear drops to their ear canals.
Realise that you and the food bowl are still there, but your dog is nowhere to be seen.

Phone the vet. Do we have to do this again, twice a day, every day for the next 2 weeks?

Perhaps not.

Great news for owners of dogs who are tricky to give ear drops to, whose lives are just too busy to remember the twice daily treatment, or for dogs whose ear infections haven’t come under control with other drops.
There is a new medication for dogs with ear infections which … wait for it … is applied by the vet. A dose is applied the the infected ear by the vet, and then repeated 1 week later. And that’s it. The new product is applied as a liquid, though quickly sets into a gel in the ear, so it stays put and isn’t shaken out. Of course, it is only effective for infections susceptible to the medications in it.
So, if you’re struggling to manage ear medications, this new product might be worth a try.