You notice your pet is seriously scratching those ears looking like a whirlwind in action. What can be the problem? It could be ear mites. Ear mites are tiny little pests that like to live inside your pet’s ears causing your pet to scratch his ears like mad. If the scratching goes untreated, pets can scratch themselves hairless, which can cause infections. Ear mites are easily transferred from pet to pet, so if you have more than one pet you have a major job on your hands to remove ear mites but it can be done.
To help remove those pesty ear mites, be sure to clear away any crust build up in your pet’s ear with medications. Use a small dropper to put several drops inside the ear canal, wait 3-4 hours or until the crust softens, then use an ear-cleaning syringe filled with distilled water and vinegar to remove it from your pet’s ears. Be gently and don’t try to remove the crust in one swoop. Once you are finished removing the crusts, gently clean the ear with a cotton ball.
After you have cleaned your pet’s ears, put a few drops of pyrethrins, which is an over the counter medication available in pet stores, in your pet’s ears. Place the drops in the ear canal and gently massage the ear for a few minutes to allow the medication to sink into the ear. Stop the process and let your pet shake their head, which will allow some of the liquid inside of the ear to come out, and then clean the remaining liquid with a cotton ball or tissue. You can do this for ten days, then stop and start again for ten days this should help remove those ear mites.
If you don’t want to use medications, you can use mineral or baby oil every day or every other day to help soothe your pet’s ears and remove the ear mites. Heat the oil to make it warm, not hot, then put the oil in a dropper, put enough oil in the ear canal to coat it, don’t put too much oil in your pet’s ears. Although the oil will not completely remove the ear mites at first, eventually after doing it for a few weeks the newly born mites coming out of the eggs will die before they are old enough to produce eggs and additional mites.
You can try garlic and olive oil to help relieve the itching. Crush some garlic cloves and put them in olive oil leaving it to soak overnight. Remove the garlic and heat the oil until it’s warm, follow the same procedure with olive oil as with the mineral or baby oil treatment. To remove mites, you can also use flea sprays but just don’t spray your pet spray your house also to remove mites. Since ear mites go from pet to pet treat all pets at the same time.
Remember to keep the treatments going for at least a month, which covers the complete life cycle of ear mites. You should also start cleaning your pet’s ears on a regularly basis to prevent ear mites from taking up living conditions and driving your pet into a scratching frenzy. One way to check to see if your pet has mites is to pull their ear down and rub it over the opening, if they start scratching, it may be mites. Take your pet to the vet to make sure.
