How to Flush Your Dog's Ears

Flushing your dog's ears can be helpful when treating otitis externa, or an outer ear infection. Many veterinarians recommend it during treatment, or after a dog is finished swimming to help push water out of the ear canals.

Things You'll Need

  • Commercial ear flush or you can use a 50/50 mix of water and vinegar
  • Cotton balls

Instructions

    • 1

      Holding the dog's ear flap in one hand, squirt a liberal amount of the ear flush into the ear canal.

    • 2

      Still holding the ear flap, use your second hand to gently massage the base of the ear. In dogs, the ear canal travels first vertically and then makes a corner to travel horizontally. You are trying to get the ear flush to clean this horizontal canal.

    • 3

      You can let the dog shake his/her head and then repeat the above steps if you don't feel the ear is clean enough.

    • 4

      Using the cotton balls and the ear flush, gently wipe the exterior of the ear flap to clean.

    • 5

      Repeat above steps in the second ear. There is no need to rinse the ear canal after cleaning.