How to Pluck Your Dog's Ears & Other Means of Animal Torture

One of the responsibilities of owning a dog is keeping it clean and healthy. And one area of our dogs' anatomy that often gets neglected is their ears. Dogs need to have their ears cleaned and depending on the breed plucked regularly. Breeds such as bishon frise, poodle, shih tzues, maltese, schnauzers, and westies are some of the dogs whose ears require plucking. Unclean ears can lead to ear mites or infection which if go untreated can cause hearing loss. This monthly trip to the vet or groomer can get costly, but you can easily care for your dog's ears yourself. And by following these simple steps you can learn to pluck and care for your dog's ears.

First you will need to assemble your supplies. You will need: alcohol, q-tips, paper towels, tweezers, and an accomplice. Although most of these are basic household items the importance of finding a trust worthy accomplice is crucial. Your accomplice must be strong enough to restrain your dog and valiant enough to divert the snarls and nips that may be coming your way. A dedicated accomplice will throw himself between you and your perturbed pet and still be willing to help you the next month. Now that we've gathered our supplies let's find our victim.

Unknown to most humans dog mothers through out time have coached their offspring on the evils of humans with shiny objects, and the tortures they intend. So you will need to instruct your accomplice to approach your pet from behind when going to restrain her. So there's Fifi laying there in her favorite spot innocently chewing a bone. And bam! Your accomplice sneaks up and grabs her from behind, and you enter the scene with your instruments of doom. The safest and easiest way to restrain a dog is to hold the dog's muzzle in one hand and placing the dog's body under the other arm. Due to the surprise and fear your pet is probably experiencing, saying some calm reassuring words about now would help.

Now, just about every area of pet care is pretty gross from picking up poo to expressing anal glands. Cleaning your dog's ears is no different. You're going to need to inspect and sniff your dog's ear canal. Eeew! Yes, take a good whiff is the ear abnormally funky. Hopefully not, because ear odor can be a sign of ear mites or infection. If a funky odor is detected Fifi wins a first class trip to the vet's office. If there is no odor proceed with cleaning the ear with the q-tips and alcohol. And just like in humans don't ram the swab into the ear canal; this can puncture the ear drum. Now that the ear is cleansed let's pluck the excess hairs.

Many breeds of dogs and some older men have excess hairs to grow in their ears. The only solution is to pluck them out. Which just like it sounds it can be pretty painful due to the ear's sensitivity. And at this point the dog or in some cases old man can resort to snarling and biting. This is where your accomplice earns his or her stars. While the dog is restrained pluck away the excess hairs from the ear. After that episode of torture, now apply a few drops of mineral oil to the assaulted ear. Rub the ear distributing the oil which sooths the ear.

See now that wasn't so bad at least not for you. Now let's repeat the procedure on the other ear. And if you and your accomplice survive cleaning and plucking your dog's ears with all your fingers. You can now do this task yourself instead of making a costly trip to the groomer. And you now have a new skill to add to your knowledge of pet care.