Like all husbandry and care procedures, the best thing to start with is teaching gentle handling from the puppy stage. Ears are no different.
If you have a dog with drooping ears (e.g. cocker spaniel), they can be more prone to ear infections as there is less air flow and therefore a warmer and darker environment.
Getting Your Dog Use To Ear Handling
To teach a positive association with handling the ears, include touching and lifting the ears (if drooping ears) and follow with a treat.
Ear slides (from TTouch) are another way to help calm dogs and create a positive experience with touching. Gently stroking from the base out to the tip in the direction of the ear helps to calm the nervous system, release tension, and improve focus. Ear slides have a natural calming effect due to the amount of acupressure points within the ear.
Preparing Your Dog for Ear Cleaning and Medication
Once your dog is used to handling of the ears you can start to add duration in preparation for ear exams, cleaning and medications.
- Simply start to pause once lifting the ear or pause while holding the ear if the ears are pricked.
- Mark and treat for accepting the longer duration.
- Start adding in a gentle ear wipe procedure for your dog to get used to the sensation of having something in the ear. Wipe once or twice and mark and treat.
Unfortunately, a lot of the time dogs only get to experience ear drops when they have an ear infection which is painful. But it is one of those things that need treatment straight away. So the more work you can do teaching your dog to accept ear handling and even practice using a gentle ear cleaner regularly, will set them up for success when they actually need treatment.
Tip: Practice when you don’t need it – i.e. you don’t practice a fire drill when there is a fire
We love teaching a chin rest for both simple ear and eye procedures where you need stillness and duration. Watch our Chin Rest video to learn how to teach your dog this useful skill.
Helping Your Dog Feel More Comfortable
Cooperative Care Training can help your dog become more confident and comfortable with procedures like ear handling/cleaning, grooming and nail trimming, while reducing the fear, anxiety and stress often associated with these husbandry procedures.
Read our collection of articles on Cooperative Care in Dogs to learn how you can use cooperative care training to make everyday grooming and health care less stressful for your dog.