Expert: Jana Connell RVT, CVT - 10/25/2010

Question
Hello,

I have a 7 year old chocolate lab who has itchy ears. He's had yeast infections in the past but they have always been accompanied with a black waxy substance in his ears. Now he does not have that but he still has the desperate itch. We tried changing his food in case it was a food allergy but it hasn't helped. We hesitate to use a cleansing solution on his ears without knowing for sure it's a yeast infection. Is there anything else we can try or should we bring him to the vet?

Answer
HI Jackie,
Well as you know, labs are known for itchy ears. Any time a dog is rubbing his ears and scratching them there is a reason. Cleaning his ears out with a 70% rubbing alcohol or witch hazel will help dry them out and might lessen some of the itching. Using a cleaning solution in them will not hurt him whether or not he has a yeast infection.
It will just help clean them out.

Since there is more than one type of yeast and since he is prone to these infections it would probably behoove you to make him an appointment to get his ears checked.

Changing his food will only help if you are changing it to a higher quality food or a hypo-allergenic food such as Z/D by Hills. You might want to use a food that is of novel proteins like duck and venison or something but food intolerance's (or true allergies) usually manifest in itching all over, red skin, and even pustular dermatitis.

Sometimes itchy ears is the only symptom but changing food all the time will actually make him worse overall and it contributes to severe gastro-intestinal upset and even pancreatitis.

So this is not something you can do on a whim- his gut will rebel!

Keeping a good quality cleanser on hand for these times will help lessen the itching and help prevent infections from him rubbing his ears all over the place.

Some folks do have good luck ridding their dogs of major itchy issues by going with a whole food diet for their dogs but you have to make sure you know what you are doing in cooking and feeding such a diet. I am not talking about a raw diet either, but a whole food, natural diet. You can find websites for these diets from veterinarians online.

I normally recommend Science Diet and the Sensitive skin formula will sometimes help a dog like yours but sometimes it does nothing if the itching is from non-dietary sources, such as ear mites etc.

I do believe that good nutrition does help with yeast infections however as dogs that get a lot of them seem to be on lesser quality foods. Breed predilection has a lot to do with it as well as you know.

So get a cleanser to keep on hand, get his ears cleaned out for now and if he continues to rub or scratch get him into the vets before he does some major damage to his ears.