The dog's ear: features of the structure. Diseases of ears in dogs

If you are going to become the owner of a dog, then first of all you need to decide on the breed and consult an experienced veterinarian. If you master elementary rules for caring for animals, you can avoid a huge number of mistakes.

Today we want to talk about the dog's ear. This is an external paired organ that can be easily examined, but often the owners forget about it and begin to sound an alarm when there is already inflammation. It is very important to prevent this problem, which means that all lovers of pets should read the article necessarily.

Physiology

The ear of a dog is similar to ours in its structure. They also make out the outer, inner and middle ear. Let's take a closer look at each of them. The outer ear of a dog is the visible part, on which our knowledge of physiology usually ends. The shape and size of the shell can vary greatly, depending on the breed. Very often this particular feature is decisive when choosing an animal. Someone more like a dog with big ears, the other way around. Functional load is slightly different, depending on the shape. The standing ear of a dog is a locator that catches sounds. Long canvases are most often hunters, they serve not only as an organ of hearing, but also drive smells right to the nose when the animal follows the trail.

The middle ear is a sound-conducting and sound-forming department. They consist of a tympanum and a membrane, an auditory tube and ossicles: a malleus, anvil and stapes. The ear of the dog is provided with a longer auditory canal and a huge eardrum. This is what provides acute hearing. The inner ear is a webbed and bony labyrinth.

Advantages and disadvantages of the system

As already mentioned, the hearing of our pets is many times greater than the human. However, this structure has its drawbacks. Such an arrangement of the auditory canal practically negates the ventilation of the ear. That is, any liquid can not leave it and gradually causes inflammation. This causes difficulty in the treatment of diseases. Therefore, breeds of dogs with ears longer than the nose are at risk and should undergo a routine checkup.

Otitis

Almost every person faced this disease, well, or at least heard about it. Simplicity in diagnosis creates the illusion that you can cure otitis very quickly. However, this is not the case. Indeed, to determine that the ear is inflamed is not difficult. If you know the symptoms, then you can suspect the otitis literally from the first day:

• Soreness of the shell. When pressing, the dog starts to whimper, press your ear to your hand.
• Behavior also changes. The animal shakes its head, scratches the ear with its paws, presses it to the floor. Especially at night it is very noticeable that the dog does not sleep, but walks around the house.
• If the inflammation leads to a rise in temperature, then your pet may be, on the contrary, depressed.

Diagnosis and administration

Do not pull with a hike to the vet. Any breed of dogs with large ears is prone to inflammatory processes, so any deviation in behavior should be the reason for contacting a specialist. In severe cases, lymph nodes can become inflamed, which can lead even to the development of encephalitis, that is, inflammation of the brain. However, to prescribe a full-fledged treatment, it is not enough to assess external clinical symptoms.

Causes of diseases of the ears

Any therapy begins with a full diagnosis. Veterinarians share what causes otitis, for primary causes and supporting factors. In fact, to designate an adequate treatment, we are most interested in what it originally caused:

• The most common cause is the immunodeficiency and weakening of the barrier properties of the skin. Do not forget that the structure and functions of the covers of our body are the same everywhere.
• Hypersensitivity also often becomes a cause.

Often, otitis of different etiology is caused by ear mites, or in other ways by otodectos. The activity of the parasite itself leads to constant itching. The animal paws the skin and infects the infection, which leads to the development of secondary inflammation. To traumatize the ear and cause a similar reaction can and foreign objects, such as pieces of cotton that remain after cleaning, particles of grass and dirty water that gets into the auricle during bathing. Often, the cause of otitis development is a disruption in the endocrine system and tumors of the auditory canal.

Secondary factors of the development of diseases

The beginning is necessary, one of the listed reasons has led to that in an ear cavity the inflammation has begun. If you do not pay attention to it and do not provide the pet with the proper help, then it will progress. To the septic, or secondary, factors can be attributed all the huge amount of environmental microorganisms, bacteria and fungi.

Now it is from what exactly the ear cavity is occupied, that is, from the qualitative and quantitative set of pathogenic microbes that have settled in the ears of the dog, and all the variety of external manifestations of otitis, that is, the amount and color of the purulent secreted, and the duration of the course of the disease will depend. So do not try to diagnose yourself. At the first symptoms, carry the animal to the veterinarian, who will examine the dog's ears. Photo and description on the Internet will never give such comprehensive information as a trained eye of a professional.

Treatment

If the disease is not started, and the dog is calm about such procedures, then, most likely, it will take only one or two visits to completely heal your pet. However, it also happens that examination and the performance of cleansing manipulations are possible only with general anesthesia. The first procedure is purification. It is necessary to remove all accumulated secretions, to clean the cavity of accumulated pus or other contaminants. To do this, use disinfectant solutions. Then, all affected areas are lubricated with a special ointment, treated with a spray or buried with drops. Usually after this comes some relief.

Duration of treatment

This is a purely individual factor. For example, a large dog with short ears has less chance of infecting them. Consequently, the improvement will happen much faster. Most of all suffer short-legged creatures with long ears, which constantly gets dirt, dust and bacteria. Therefore, the duration of treatment depends on a huge number of factors and can result in either a quick victory or the need to periodically perform preventive measures for a certain time or even a lifetime.

Weekly procedures

To be sure that your pet's ears are completely healthy, it is enough to conduct an inspection once a week. To do this, store with cotton buds and discs, as well as a solution of "Furacilin". The latter is used if signs of redness are noticed, as a means for wetting discs. If the surface of the skin is light, smooth, there is no sign of inflammation or suppuration, it is not recommended to use any additional means. With a clean stick, remove the sulfur and praise the pet for his endurance.

Instead of concluding

Diseases of the ears in dogs have many faces, and each of them has its own course. And for the owners of some breeds to know the subtleties of care and the first signs of the inflammatory process is simply necessary. This applies to basset hounds and dachshunds, beagles, poodles, that is, all short-legged representatives of the canine world who have long and heavy ears. If you regularly give time to preventive examinations, you will be able to notice the first signs in time and start treating the dog's ears before it grows into a real tragedy.