Let’s talk about when groomers pluck ear hair in dogs.
I imagine it feels an awful lot like somebody yanking out pubic hair. It has to hurt, right?? And if the ears are even the least bit pink, red, swollen – it’s gonna hurt worse!
And to top it off…
If the groomer is ripping out that hair, they’re opening the pore. Causing a little bit of local damage, opening it up to blood flow. And if the ear is infected, now we introduce bacteria (because bacteria naturally lives on the skin) into the pore/hairroot. Plucking might actually make an infection worse.
So the question is: To pluck.. or not to pluck?
Answer: It depends on the dog.
.
Most of the time we try to leave hair in the ears. Because it’s there naturally. We’re talking about doodles a lot of the time. Those dog breeds with a continuously growing coat.
Sometimes it’s the opposite. If you leave the hair in the ear canal, the natural discharge from the ear is just so thick and gooey that it won’t come off the hair unless you remove the hair.
But boy, it’s better to do this plucking when the ear canal is clean and the skin is healthy.
So what does a healthy ear canal look like? You need to look at the skin itself. It should be pale. Unless of course, your dog has black skin. Most dogs have pale pink skin. So the inside of the ear canal should be pale pink. I’m not talking about the goo that’s in there. That’s a whole different thing.
But if the skin itself is not red, hot, swollen, or painful, then there’s no infection. OK, thats a good start.
If the skin is red, hot, swollen, or painful, there might be an infection. But the first thing to do is clean the ears! In most cases, no, not pluck the hair. Groomers have special scissors with blunt tips that they can get down into the ear canal and cut the fur in the ears really short without cutting the dog; they can cut out that hair that’s caked in earwax.
Usually soap and water does great to clear the earwax. Yes! I just said put soap and water in the ears. Absolutely. The solution to pollution is dilution. Soap and water. Very dilute soap. Copious water, applied gently. Massage vigorously, get that dirt out of there.
Some dogs do well with an enzymatic product. That product works well in some cases. Most of the time you simply need soap and water.
Plucking?
Not normally.
Still seeing patients in Tampa, Clearwater, and virtually.