my 1 year old parson russell is forever scratching her ears. a few months back i took her to see the vet who couldn't see anything wrong but gave her some drops anyway just to see if they helped, which they didn't, i can't remember what they were but i think they were some type of steroid drops.

her ears are perfectly clean, but she will just sit and start to scratch her ears and she doesn't seem to be able to stop herself - she just carries on scratching whilst crying and making them almost bleed.

i try and stop her by putting my hand in the way and distracting her with something, which temporarily helps, but she'll soon start again.

i don't think that it's because she's bored as she's always playing with her toys or being played with by me, and she has plenty of walks. she does like going in the river, which i thought might be the problem and i started rinsing her ears with some clean water as soon as she had got out of the river, but that didn't help either.

has anyone else experienced this ? any ideas of what might help ?

sarah
x

Ear scratching is a classic sign of allergy; what food is your dog on?

she's on naturediet optima gold

In that case, I don't know how my vets can keep telling me Millie is too young to have an allergy.  Grrrr to my vets!!

There is no minimum age at which to develop an allergy.