Hi
My 5yr old f/c retreiver bitch has had this problem from a puppy, in only one ear. 

After spending not a small amount of money with my vet (my pet insurance would not cover as pre-existing problem) i was told it was an allergy, not much help.  Since then i have tried to keep to a non-meat diet and keeping her out of water ....  I have used ear drops, pwdrs etc and kept the ears clean as far as possible.  however the problem reoccurs and does not seem to have any connnection with hygiene.  Would really welcome any advice.

It might not be meat she's alergic to but the grains in her food.  My Golden had ear issues due to her food, it also made her under belly black and flacky.  changed her food and it soon cleared up. 

I used Thornit in her ears.  i also used thornit mixed with earex (reccommended) to get to deep down problems, it soon went.  have you checked for mites.  i think the instructions to conbine with earex is on their website. 

I'd be surprised if an allergy showed in just ONE ear -but in any event to rule out an allergy I'd feed raw meat ONLY as opposed to no meat at all.

It is possible to have surgery to sort out chronic ear problems, to open up the ear canal and allow more air inside it.

I'm another Thornit fan, it always keeps my C. Spaniels ears clear of smell and mite.

I also suspect it may be a diet problem - possibly a yeast overgrowth (esp. as they are smelly).  I would combine Thornits & a raw diet (one in the ears - the other in the mouth . . . .)   Although some people move over gradually to a raw diet - there's a strong school of thought which says you should do it in one go as kibble & raw have very different digestion rates.  Look up BARF on Facebook or the internet - there's loads of information.  There are all sorts of benefits apart, hopefully, from the ears clearing up.  No farting, nice hard poos (& rarely any anal gland problems), lower likelihood of bloat (possibly anecdotal) and nice clean teeth and fresh breath and good coat/fewer skin issues - also less likely to become overweight.  Plus it's fun to feed.

I've never been a thornit fan but my girl who has had bad ears on and off for a couple of years and cost me £1,000.00 in vets fees I started it last year and use it just once a week.  This keeps the infection at bay although if I miss a week at any time especially near season times itcan flare up again

Try asking Val Jones for help she is our flatcoat breed health monitor. valbraemist@gmail.com

Def give meat as goldimali said I agree cut out grain if anything. Dogs are carnivores and need their meat :)

> >I'd be surprised if an allergy showed in just ONE ear

Mine was worse in one ear compared to the other one. 

My last dog (lab cross) would get ear infections often, they'd get very bad to the point that blood would be weeping from his ear with the puss :( The last one he had (the one that convinced me there had to be a trigger, not just bad luck) was awful. He was fine when I went to bed, when I got up in the mornin, his face & neck were swollen & hanging like a large, semi-infalted footabl on the side of the bad ear, he couldn't hold his head up straight and was reluctant to move it as movement hurt his ear & made him scream :(

The verts weren't much help, only testing the infection to get the specific ABs right and prescribing a wash to flush his ears out weekly (if used weekly, the wash appeared to make his ear worse).

The infections were getting worse & more often, they only ever happened in the one ear. He hated goign to the vet and didn't like strangers anywhere near his ears, so getting treatment for his bad ear was always a terrible ordeal for him :(

I kept a bit of a food diary and tried different foods (not too strict, I wasn't aware of a proper elimination diet then). After a short time, I was convinced that chicken was the problem. I removed that from his diet (he was on wet & dry food, so just read ingredients and ensure chicken wasn't listed anywhere). This seemed to do the trick.
If he ever got hold of even a morsel of chicken he'd start shaking his head & scratting his ear, it would get worse if he ate any more chicken. BUt, knowing to keep him away from chicken meant he never had an ear infection again, only ever irritaion from snaffling a dropped morsel.

In his final 6 months, he started to get a slight occasional irritation in that ear again, but as long as he never had ham he was fine.

I hope you can get to the bottom of it, my dog would look so sorry for himself when his ear was bad. It would be great if you could find the trigegr and prevent her having to get poorly a poorly ear.

> Def give meat as goldimali said I agree cut out grain if anything. Dogs are carnivores and need their meat

The most common allergens  in dogs are beef, dairy, wheat, egg, chicken, lamb, soy, pork, rabbit, and fish.

I have a breed with 'ears' too, it's a blooming' nuisance isn't it - for us and for them

One of mine has ear problems associated with his allergies and sore and gunky ears are just one of ways in which his allergy manifests.  He has been blood tested so we know what he is allergic to but we've never really been able to fully eradicate the ear trouble.  He's raw fed however and I'm 100% convinced that this is a much better diet for a sensitive dog so I'm not sure why you've been advised to eliminate meat all together?  Obviously he might be allergic to one type of protein but I don't think from your comments that the vet has done that yet

My other dog of the same breed was swabbed recently after some recurring trouble to find he had Pseudomonas - the vet sent the swab off to establish what treatment it would be susceptible to and, after an ear flush under GA, we started a course of that.  That worked brilliantly, but I notice recently that he's a gungy again so I need to decide what we do next.

I keep ears clean with Cleanaural and have used a range of things prescribed by the vet to soothe them.  I don't have anything I'd rate at 100% successful (even 50% would be nice!) so it's one of those things we just have to manage.  I have tried Thornit after seeing it recommended on here many times but it's never worked for us.

Agreed dab you put the meat thing much better than me as usual :) - worry about taking whole groups of food out of a diet without testing in some way