For those of you out there who may have...or are experiencing chronic ear infections with your hunting buddys, concider this....most vets will treat with antibiotics (per occurrence) and that is correct. You as the dog owner know whether this is a chronic problem or not. If ear infections keep coming back...your problem may be, infact, a food allergy that leads to infection. I have seen four dogs now that had this condition as a " chronic" problem, cleared up for good by changing to a true " premium" dog food such as Black Gold or Diamond dog food. I can' t say for sure what is in other foods that cause these occurrences except possibly whole corn or preservatives. The dogs I speak of suffered with these infections on and off for over three years. Within 3-weeks of changing the food, the symptoms completely went away and have not reappeared. (months later). Just something to think about should you be having this trouble.

Keep' m hunt' n

Rick

Very true. Food allergies are a common cause of chronic reoccuring ear infections. Although one thing you said was a little misleading. If a dog has a food allergy, switching to a premium food will unlikely make a difference. When a dog is allergic to the food, they are actually allergic to either a specific protein (usually beef, pork, or chicken) or a specific carbohydrate (such as corn) within the food. Since most foods (including premium foods) contain the same sources of protein and carbohydrates, you will probably see no difference. True allergy diets will contain alternate protein and carbohydrate sources such as Venison and Rice, or Duck and Barley, etc. Chicken and Rice Diets used to be very popular, but chicken has become so commonplace in diets nowadays, that it is often useless as a allergy diet.

To test to see if your dog has a food allergy, I recommend Science Diet z/d ultra. There is absolutely nothing in this food that the dog can be allergic too. Therefore it works very well to determine whether or not your dog has a food allergy.

wvvet......excellent point! There would be a specific cause as you stated. Two of the dogs I was speaking of were fed a chicken based protien food prior to changing over to the beef based " Black Gold" performance blend. The others...I can' t say. All of these dogs had their " conditions" simply go away and not come back after making a food change. Guess they got lucky with their new selection by elliminating the source of the problem.

Thanks for the response wvvet,

Rick

IF and again I say IF the infection is a yeast type infection an anti yeast female hygiene product has worked. Our vet recommended this for our Springer a year or so ago. It seems to be a common problem with long eared pups.

This is realy great info guys. Two of my dogs are always battling ear infections. Have to see how I can change things up.