Our year old flatcoated retriever, Charlie, has recently begun to smell quite strongly. I can only describe it as his normal doggy smell, but stronger. He also seems to scratch around his ears quite a lot, so we thought he might have a yeast infection in his ears. The smell also seems to be stronger when he scratches.
We have been cleaning his ears twice a day for the last week. But it doesn't seem to be helping. His feet seem fine so we don't think there is infection there and otherwise he is as funny and cheeky as ever.
Any ideas as to the cause of his smell are very welcome.

I've recently had a similar problem with my springer & we couldn't work out where the smell was coming from. We took him to the vet & it was discovered that he has a pseudomonas infection in the folds of his lips on his bottom jaw, nicely hidden under his top lips. We endured the smell for a month before we found out what it was & the poor dog must have been very uncomfortable. It might be worth while just checking round Charlie's mouth to see if there is anything untoward going on.

Thank you!

Have you found out whats causing It?

We think he has a yeast infection and the vet has given us a product to clean his ears Otoact, which seems to be helping. He is itching less. The underlying cause may be diet, he gets mainly kibble, but we are relcutant to mess around with his diet because he had a lot of diarrhea in the past. Apparently carbohydrate encourages the production of yeast but Charlie doesn't seem to do well with a lot of meat in his diet.

Oh dear let me tell you about my dog ...From birth to 18 months was fed Burns kibble no problems at all then when he went on to adult kibble and the upset tummies started this went on for a very long time then we went onto Fish for Dogs everything fine for a couple of years, thought***must be the meat but he always had the odd marrow bone no problems ...Then 3 years ago he started with an itch on his back changed food to 3 more varieties salmon and potato...Vet's told me it was Neurological...Hydrotherapy...Physiotherapy... every supplement going ..AB's...Shampoo's ... I tried a bit of homecooking for him aswell, but all the time I thought it was something yeasty as his back felt greasy and run your fingers through it and your fingers were dirty ...Well things came to a head two weeks ago he was getting quite distressed with the itch rolling around all the time ...So I bit the bullet and went raw I had nothing to lose joined the FB page decided just to go with the raw frozen blocks (just for the time being)Well I changed Monday evening 2 weeks ago, no change over time, just went for it ..The outcome is he much more comfortable the itch is still there but much much improved..and he is loving it so are we ...I never thought like yourself my dog would be eating raw meat and we haven't had one runny pooh at all !!! I wish oh how I wish but you cannot turn the clock back, I cannot wait to see the end results in about another 4 weeks...     

Yes, from our research, diet seems to cause this problem quite a lot.  At the moment we believe Charlie's itch problem to be seasonal but if it continues or spreads to other areas we will change his diet. Regular cleaning of his ears with the product seems to.be working for now though. It's good to hear other people's experience, thanks for sharing.

One of mine get's a smelly ear if she's on the wrong food, or too much of the right food, or too many titbits!

Of course, food ingredients change too, and that's a real pain, especially if she's been doing well, and we then have to find another food that suits, and that can take aaaages :(