Ear Irritant / Infection Gone Wild!
Any thoughts from experience welcomed and thoroughly appreciated...
I have an outbreak spreading through the yard. My dogs, mostly puppies are shaking their heads. Let me get this out of the way, I do not have fleas, ticks or any other parasites. My dogs are healthy I take their health ultra seriously. This has been ongoing but hasn't been much of a concern I'll explain.
Back in May we had tornado warnings, I was asked to pick up a couple pups at a friends yard who was out of town. Their kennel had blown over and they were running the chicken yard (lots of chickens). They were very healthy visually and like pups had eaten whatever trash or chicken shit they could find which ended up on my lap on the travel home. One pup with kinda large ears always shook his head.
I really didn't think anything of it at the time because the other pup would ring his bell when they got all riled up. They stayed for 6 weeks or more, I had to litters at the time, one was born in Feb and the other in June while the pups were here. I did let all the pups who would tolerate the two visitors play from time to time. Later after the two visitors left I began putting the bigger pups on chains freeing up kennels to disperse the June batch.
One of those guys had bloody ear tips I noticed, I also caught him shake his head from time to time. Then another of older ones. Then I noticed the younger litter shaking occasionally. So I cleaned those guys ears with a solution of Alcohol, boric acid and gentian violent, no change.
Then a couple adult dogs would shake their heads, and one of the older pups who was still up in the front kennel area. I took that one to the vet, they gave me Trizultra + Keto ear cleaning solution and treated his ear with EKT which is similar to Panalog. They wouldn't give me medication to treat any others without seeing them. They did not do a cytology but did look under a microscope and said no mites looks like yeast or fungus.
That pup only showed marginal improvement, I used that cleaning solution on every dog shaking their heads, 17 total. No improvement so I took the two brothers who were the first displaying symptoms to another vet. No cytology done, not even a look in the microscope, they did use an Otiscope and thought it was an allergen causing the outbreak. It was suggested to me to remove all their bedding (I use clean Bermuda and cedar shavings) so I did and replaced with pine shavings. They dispensed an aloe based ear cleanser and an ear ointment with genticin, clortrimazole and a steroid. No major improvement with any of the pups, one had his salivary gland infected, and one is having major issues with his ears worse as they are super tender to the touch and his left eye is so swollen the red meaty part is protruding into the eye area. He's light sensitive and his pupils are dilated. I discontinued the gentizol medication on those two. As well as my house dog who could not be exposed to those allergens as my vets claims other than them being on us coming inside.
She's an old lady, her ears became tender and she would occasionally shake, after the gentizol she lost her hearing completely so I discontinued it with her, the swollen eye dog and the salivary dog, 3 of the older littermates are still getting the meds but no change. This isn't a huge issue with most of the dogs who are displaying signs, as they are only shaking occasionally. It worsened on the ones who I guess are genticin intolerant.
The guy with the two original pup has an adult doing the same thing. Never been to my yard. He took that one to another vet who did do a cytology, said it was yeast and treated with a medication that lasts a week and dispensed cleanser. Not sure which medication was placed in the ear or if there has been marked improvement yet.
Any help?
Thank you,
S_B
