Boxer with Sore Ears

Rogueish

Hi All,

I'm looking for some advice. My 2year old boxer has an ongoing problem with her ears. She has a 'rash' that looks quite like psorasis on the inside of her ears. It is pretty itchy to the extent that she has scratched some of the fur off her ear and has drawn blood.

Now overall there has been an improvement in her condition. She had a breakout over her chest and ears a few months ago. We took her to the vet who suggested that her diet was too high in protein (we had her on eukanuba). He prescribed anti-inflammatories and we changed her diet to Burns Chicken & Rice (no treats). This was over the summer and she was spending a fair bit of time outside and her condition improved. Not totally cleared up but got a lot better (her chest is now clear).

So in the last few weeks her ears have been getting worse. I had her back at the vets 2 weeks ago. This time the vet suggested that it could be dust mites and prescribed 2 weeks of anti-inflammatories. 2 weeks are up and there has been no real improvement. She has been kept away from the carpet, her bed has been washed etc and no improvement, wooden floors throughout the house bar the stairs.

My heart is breaking for her. She's such a good and sweet tempered dog and doesn't deserve this. I will be taking her back to the vet but in the meantime does anyone else have any suggestions because the vet is just guessing at this stage??

Oh shes been treated for worms and fleas.

peasant

second opinion ..i.e. different vet ?

Rogueish

Thanks Peasant but the scary thing is that this is the second opinion.

The first vet I took her too when I expressed a concern re: the protein content of her diet turned around to me and said in a VERY patronising tone that 'if the dog was in the wild 75% of the dogs diet would be protein' grrrrrr:mad:

The next suggestion from the vet is that the dog undergo general anaesthetic and a scraping to be taken from her ear for analysis. If this needs to be done so be it but she took a good while to recover from the general anaesthetic she was given when she was spayed so if I can avoid it all the better.

peasant

Hmm ...I'm no vet but

If this isn't healing up by itself, something more nasty is causing it to stay infected. In order to find out exactly what that is, a scraping is the only way (as far as I know)

Schlemm

Going by your description it sounds like an allergy to me with perhaps a secondary external ear infection and skin rash. Obviously I don't know exactly what it is but primary allergies with ear and skin problems (often bacterial/yeast infections, that sort of thing) that come as secondary complications are common in dogs. Perhaps the vet should've done a few more tests. These conditions involving itchy dogs have loads of causes and can be often quite difficult to get to the bottom of, you just have to be patient. You really need to get a vet to find the primary cause of the condition if you want to deal with it effectively.

Has the vet done any of the following:
Ear swabs
Skin scraping
Low allergy diet
Allergy test
Wood's lamp skin test (with a UV light)?

And is there any sort of waxy build up in the ears?

Rogueish

I'm afraid the vet has done no tests bar recommend a change of diet and prescribe anti inflammatories.

No there is very little waxy build up in her ears. She is such a good baby.

Thanks for the suggestions, at least it is something I can go back to the vet with.

jameshayes

This sounds like a yeast infection (not caused by over feeding yeast) the only thing you can do is keep it cool and make sure it doesn't get swetty.. The vet can give you cream for her year to cool it down if it gets really bad....

(i'm no vet but thats my opinion, of course I could be completly wrong)

Rogueish

I had her up to the vet last night. All he was going to do was put a collar on her until it healed. It's not treating the problem. I has to suggest an ear scraping :mad: Anyway the baby went in to the vet this morning for her ear scraping. I have to collect her this evening at 4

egan007

A solution to a boxer with sore ears



Sorry could not resist....:D

Schlemm

Hopefully the scraping will shed some more light on what's going on.

Are you still using the Burn's Chicken and Rice diet? It sounds like there was a bit of an improvement while you were using this food. Was there any change in the original diet before the original onset of clinical signs?

You could always try a specific low allergy commercial dog food - I think Burns have a product and most commercial brands have too. Ideally a low allergen diet should not contain anything that was previously fed to the dog, and should be used for a few months (3 months is good) as a trial. Since there are no real reliable diagnostic tests for food allergy (although they can sometimes be useful), a trial of a low allergen diet is a good way to go.

Just wondering, is there any gunge or smelly discharge from the ears or on the itchy spots (like a wet dog smell)?

Rogueish

No discharge, it has been weeping after she scratched it for the last day or two, hence why she was taken up to the vet last night.

She has been on the burns chicken & rice diet. Yes there was some improvement after she changed diet but she was outside during the day more and was placed on anti-inflammatories too so we can't say that it was definitely the change in diet.

There has been very little build up in her ears, other than what can be considered normal. (according to the vet when he cleaned them out)