Shaking head and scratching his ear.

[clam]

Can anyone offer ideas here? In the last 15 mins or so my dog has been violently shaking his head and scratching his right ear. He's been in most of the morning so I can't see what he could have trapped in it. Doesn't seem serious enough to go to the vet's. What should I do?

Have a look at his ear - is it hot, inflamed, can you see anything stuck in it? If all looks OK give him a good massage of it and see what happens - if it doesn't clear up by later today, vets before it gets any worse.

Well, the trouble is, I'm laid up with a broken leg, so it's not easy to grab him and look! He's sitting just out of range! Will try...

Could be ear mites? Our's had them and our vet gave us drops and said we can buy more from the pet shop if we need them again.

could be ear mites or an infection, possibly a grass seed but wrong time of year and you say he hasn't been out today yet. I would advise going to the vets sooner rather than later if it persists as ear infections can be difficult to shift once they take hold.

If you can grab him see if it smells or wipe the inside with a tissue and see if there's black gunge , mine gets that and has drops from the vet .

SIL came round and took us to the vet's. He has an ear infection and both ears were pretty gunked up. So we have drops to administer. That's going to be fun.

My lab has this problem all too often. He gets a yeast infection in his left ear so we have to try and prevent it by using a flushing solution and ear drops on a regular basis. It smells really cheesy and there's a brown waxy substance that builds up. Someone also told me to use a mixture of olive oil and vinegar to flush his ear.
Poor doggy! Hope it clears up soon!

please don't use vinegar in your dogs ear!

There's a brown waxy substance, certainly. Horrible.
We have a cleaning solution for his 'good' ear, and antibiotic drops for the poorly one.
That's the trouble with droopy spaniel ears!