Doing a ‘Deep Clean’ on a dog’s ears
This does need doing now and then. Just cleaning the bit you can see when you pull up the ear flap doesn’t really do any good and, although is nice for the dog, the problems lurk ‘further down’ and the wax settling down there needs breaking up and shifting now and then.
1) If you have a dog that is a handful, do this with its lead on for a start and with a helper.
2) Have a good general ear cleaner to hand with a decent length spout to get as low down the ear canal as possible. I recommend http://www.vetuk.co.uk/…/cleanaural-dog-ear-cleaner-p-655
3) Have reasonably thick kitchen roll to hand.
4) So start by lifting the ear flap as pulling it gently but firmly as high up as possible. Have the cleaner bottle with plenty shook down into the spout. Push the cleaner bottle as far down the ear canal as possible. This may be slightly uncomfortable so take a good look at the angle the ear canal goes before inserting. But be firm, don’t play at it going in just a few mm’s…. you will only be following the ear canal and the plastic is shaped for it so push it in as far as a firm hand can within reason and immediately give a really hard squeeze on the bottle and get as much as possible in that one squeeze in there. Withdraw the bottle. The dog will almost certainly IMMEDIATELY shake his head… thats fine, just stand clear… in all honesty if you have got enough out in the one hard squeeze stuff should pretty much fly out his ear as he shakes his head.
5) So hold the tip of the ear flap and pull it upwards again gently but firmly so he looks like an American doberman with standy uppy pointed ears 
Take your other hand down to what you might see as the base of the ear, well below where it joins the body and pinch this area gentle but firmly. Massage this pretty hard up and down in little fast movements until you hear lots of squelching of the liquid…. If you hear nothing, genuinely you have not got enough cleaner in there…. so repeat and shake a lot more down into the business end of the bottle before putting it in the ear…..Do this for say 15 seconds then give him a rest. Then do it again for 15 seconds more. Let the ear go and chances are he will shake his head again. Stand clear
Take your other hand down to what you might see as the base of the ear, well below where it joins the body and pinch this area gentle but firmly. Massage this pretty hard up and down in little fast movements until you hear lots of squelching of the liquid…. If you hear nothing, genuinely you have not got enough cleaner in there…. so repeat and shake a lot more down into the business end of the bottle before putting it in the ear…..Do this for say 15 seconds then give him a rest. Then do it again for 15 seconds more. Let the ear go and chances are he will shake his head again. Stand clear 6) Get a sheet of kitchen roll and wind it into a point as long as you can. Poke this down the ear canal (you can do NO HARM AT ALL). Turn and wiggle it for as long as he will tolerate it. Some love it, some hate it. Pull it out, and repeat with another clean one. Almost all dogs will have brown/black gunk on the kitchen roll… this is GOOD…. it is doing what it should!
7) With a fresh sheet wipe all inside the ear and with your finger press it down the canal as far as you can being gentle but firm and wind your finger round in a circular motion a time or two. Then bin all the kitchen roll.
IF it was really traumatic and he threw himself all over the place do one ear a day. YES its a bit of a proceedure and chances are he will object but tough, its for his own good.
8) Repeat for the other ear. Because most people are right handed, doing the dogs right ear will always be easier for a right handed person, visa versa for a left handed one…. so genuinely my biggest tip is do the hard one first……
I would do this once a month for all the dogs as a general thing… but if they had never had it before, I’d do it three times in one week to give a huge starting point clean up, then do it monthly thereafter 
Diana Stevens – 2022
