Rags ear infection (my dog)

[Buttons2]

Why on earth did I ever keep the name Rags for my dog? Too late now I suppose to change it!

Anyways, his ears were hot & he was shaking his head. Finally dawned on me he had an ear infection. I gave him one anti-biotic pill I had left over from the staph infection this spring. Only one....because he refused to take the next one 4 hrs. later!

So I got on the internet & did some research for home remedies. Came up with 50/50 white vinegar with warm water (what I had on hand last night). I used a big dropper & put a solution in each ear. He did some serious head shaking for awhile & gave me a "what a meanie you are!" look.

This morning his ears are no longer hot,still slightly warm but not noticable.

It wasn't ear mites since there was no bad odor,nor did I see any redness. He had gone into the neighbor's pond last week when he spotted the turtle,I'm thinking he got pond scum in his ear or ??

At any rate I wanted to share with you what I learned about dogs & ear mites. Anti-biotics can make it worse. Vinegar will kill the suckers. Dogs don't get ear mites as much as cats do. Over 70% of dog ear mites are caused by allergies!!!

Also read alot of stuff about heartworm in dogs. Heartworm comes from mosquitoes,sure didn't realize that. Most vets treat dogs for heartworm as a precautionary measure. And they give vaccines every year for stuff they may never be exposed to. Now I expect some flake about what I'm sharing,but I also want to encourage people to treat there dogs like they would themselves, think outside the box so to speak. DIET can be the culprit for many things the vet will never ackowledge.

My grandparent's had a Beagle that lived to be 21 yrs old,never went to a vet a day in his life,and never ate anything but table scraps.

My point (if there is one), is that I believe we overmedicate our dogs & get too many vaccines for them. We use chemicals to kill ticks & fleas,take them to be groomed where they end up smelling all fru-fru from shampoos,in other words we treat them as part of the family but do we just let them be dogs?

Anybody else have thoughts to share about this? I'm gonna give Rags one more dose of the vinegar/water today just to make sure I've gotten all the gunk out of his ear, but I could have taken him to the vet & probably have not seen an immediate improvement & it would have cost me hundreds of $$$.

Just my story......Buttons

[annelb]

Glad to hear that the ear infection is better. I will keep the vinegar/water in mind if my dog ever gets this.

You mention that your grandparents had a dog who lived to 21 - that is unusual in this day and age. Table scraps.....hmm. What sort of diet did your GP's have. I'm gonna bet it was not fast food.
Anne

[Buttons2]

About the age of their dog, I'm pretty sure it was more like 18yrs. My mother is getting dementia,I remember seeing the dog when he was very old,grey muzzle & kinda crippled up. My grandparents lived on a farm in Arkansas so yes everything was natural. I need to learn not to repeat much of what my folks tell me these days!:rolleyes:

We did have a cat that lived to 21 however,she never went to the vet-was always healthy,not a high energy cat. When she got that old she stopped grooming her long fur,we took her in to have her fur cut (had to be put under), she didn't live long after that.....and looked just awful to boot!:eek: All she did in her old age was sleep & eat a little bit of dry food,even her teeth were still good @ her old age. Genetics I suppose.

I didn't have help to hold Rags down yesterday for another dose of vinegar,he's doing fine though,ears feel normal & no more head shaking. I'll be more observant from here on out, I cannot keep him from plunging into the pond when he gets it in his head to go after something,he likes to scare up all the ducks too! I tend to think this is also how he got the staph infection this spring,vet said he could even get infections from running in the high grass.

I have mixed feelings about vets. Have come to conclude they "guess" alot. Was told Pepper had kennel cough,then when went back a week later was told it couldn't have been that or Rags would have caught it, well duh-Rags had been given the meds for that before he left the shelter,it's supposed to be effective for 12 mos,Rags got his next dose of med @ 11 mos.

At any rate, there's alot of info on the net about home remedies. I don't live where I have access to naturopathic vets but I can glean the info they write about & also read true stories ordinary people like to share. I just stay clear of any sites promoting products for sale.

Too bad this forum seems to be stalling out, I doubt we'll ever get back to the busy BT we had in the past.....maybe everyone's just on vacation?

Buttons

[annelb]

Glad Rags is better. BTW - Rags is a cute name.
Anne

[JanM]

My deceased husband and I also had a dog named Rags, The name fit her to a T. Of course, we called her Rag-A-Tags and Rag-A-Muffins quite a bit. We also had her scalped about 3 or 4 times a year. She was heart broken when Jack died and later I had to give her up. But she went to a family who treated her like a queen.

[Buttons2]

Well, I'm glad to hear of other dogs named Rags. I usually call him "big guy" except when I'm calling him to come. There's nothing too adorable about him which might explain why he never got adopted!

Anyway, the vinegar remedy seems to have worked,I doubt the one dose of anti-biotics did much good.

Thanks for joining in the thread, I really miss the old BT when we had so many people sharing their stories/pictures!

Rags is the one thing I have to live for these days.....

Buttons

[joy]

sorry i am late reading this. my burned feet are keeping me busier trying to soak and wrap and just have not checked the pet or comedy thread all that much.

yes, in arkansas a lot of times in the past we did things with what we had. my mother would fix up all kinds of critters as best she could, including me. i will remember the vinegar thing. i know to use vinegar to clean hummingbird feeders rather than the purex. must safer and not as bad an odor for the birds. i finally found some BIG mouth ones that are plastic, cheap and easy to clean.

hope rags stays healthy and you get to enjoy his company for a very long time.

[BlackCat1983]

I am extremely late on this post but will try the vinegar for ear infections, I have been using what the vet gave us the last time our dog had a ear infection but am almost out of it, and the only way they will give me anymore ear solution stuff is if I take him back and have his ears cleaned by them which would be probably a 60 dollar visit, that is what it was the last time. The only vaccination our dogs get is there rabies otherwise nothing else, last year our lab had to have his distemper because we got him fixed.

Erica

[Buttons2]

Now have another issue with Rags so will start another post. The dropper I used for his ears holds 1 tsp. I put a full drop in each ear. This is a very cheap ear infection fix & it won't do any harm. Make sure the water is warm so it won't be such a shock to your dog.