Malaseb As An Ear Cleaner

[4 Paws]

My parents have a gsd that tends to get ear problems from the humidity.Mum rang a while ago and dog has sore ears again and there reg vet is not there today.I know they were given a small container a while back with malaseb shampoo and directions on it but apparently the directions have faded from getting wet so just wondering if anyone can tell me the correct rate for mixing for ears and the times per day to do it please

[Fordogs]

Hello 4 Paws I believe it is 1:40

[raineth]

wow that's kind of amazing! I was just at the vet's two days ago and she advised me to use malaseb on my dog's ears!

Now I have the bottle here, but it only has directions for use as a normal shampoo.

But the vet told me to squeeze a bit into a jar with warm water. Then use a syringe (without needle of course) and syringe it into the ear canal. Then use cotton wool (the roll - not the individual fluffy round ones) tease it out a bit and stick it in the ear canal so that is soaks up the malaseb. After 10 minutes, take the cotton wool out.

She didn't actually tell me a rate. But the rate on the bottle for using it as a shampoo is:

50 ml of shampoo for a 30 kg medium hair length dog.

So I took from that, that I only needed quite a small amount. I put about a teaspoon in about 300 mls of water.

hope that helps

[WreckitWhippet]

3mls to 100 of water.

Have now been using that as my ear cleanser for about three years.

ETA: by a clear plastic sause bottle and make it up in there. It's perfect for doing ears.

Edited January 16, 2010 by SBT123

[4 Paws]

thankyou.Do you have to make it up fresh each time?

How many times a day?

[spottychick]

Yes make it fresh each time.

You wouldn't do it more than once a day. When my dogs are having ear problems I do it once a week.

I usually take em outside, fill their ear canal till it runs out (squeezing the liquid in GENTLY) and sometimes I see brown gunk flowing out. Then I try to keep the head up and sort of massage the base of the ear to squish it around. THen let them shake their head (stand back!!!) and wipe out anything that flicks out onto the ear flap. I'll keep doing that a couple of times till they stop flicking out brown stuff.

I don't know about blocking the ear canal with cotton wool. Sounds like it defeats the purpose of flushing the gunk out of the ear.

[Sankari]

Yes make it fresh each time.

You wouldn't do it more than once a day. When my dogs are having ear problems I do it once a week.

I usually take em outside, fill their ear canal till it runs out (squeezing the liquid in GENTLY) and sometimes I see brown gunk flowing out. Then I try to keep the head up and sort of massage the base of the ear to squish it around. THen let them shake their head (stand back!!!) and wipe out anything that flicks out onto the ear flap. I'll keep doing that a couple of times till they stop flicking out brown stuff.

I don't know about blocking the ear canal with cotton wool. Sounds like it defeats the purpose of flushing the gunk out of the ear.

I do everything exactly the same as you. My GR is prone to ear infections, and the ear cleaners always stung her ears. So I found out about the malaseb ear wash and ever since i have done this she has had very few ear problems. Been using it once a week for almost 12 months now.

[raineth]

Yes make it fresh each time.

You wouldn't do it more than once a day. When my dogs are having ear problems I do it once a week.

I usually take em outside, fill their ear canal till it runs out (squeezing the liquid in GENTLY) and sometimes I see brown gunk flowing out. Then I try to keep the head up and sort of massage the base of the ear to squish it around. THen let them shake their head (stand back!!!) and wipe out anything that flicks out onto the ear flap. I'll keep doing that a couple of times till they stop flicking out brown stuff.

I don't know about blocking the ear canal with cotton wool. Sounds like it defeats the purpose of flushing the gunk out of the ear.

Hi Spottychick,

I think the the purpose of the cotton wool is to facilitate the shampoo to stay in the ear for 10 minutes - as Malaseb takes ten minutes to do what its meant to do. But I'm not an expert just going off the Vet's instructions Maybe they were specific for my dog's condition at the moment

ETA it still gets the gunk out - it all comes out with the cotton wool

Edited January 16, 2010 by raineth

[spottychick]

hmmmm yes I can see the reasoning of holding it in there to kill the mites/bacteria or whatever BUT when you do it the way I was shown there is still some of the malaseb left in the ear canal anyway and that would take at least 10 minutes to dry out. SO you still get the effect of the malaseb working as well as the flushing out of debris.

LOL how I would get my dogs to keep the cotton wool in there for that long is beyond me, they'd shake it out in seconds. And I wouldn't want to push it too far down the ear canal.

But if I was following that method I reckon the trick would be to do that the first time and then flush out a few more times the way I usually do it to make sure I rinse stuff out of the canal.

Oh and re the OP question - I use about 4 ml to 100 ml water

[raineth]

hmmmm yes I can see the reasoning of holding it in there to kill the mites/bacteria or whatever BUT when you do it the way I was shown there is still some of the malaseb left in the ear canal anyway and that would take at least 10 minutes to dry out. SO you still get the effect of the malaseb working as well as the flushing out of debris.

LOL how I would get my dogs to keep the cotton wool in there for that long is beyond me, they'd shake it out in seconds. And I wouldn't want to push it too far down the ear canal.

But if I was following that method I reckon the trick would be to do that the first time and then flush out a few more times the way I usually do it to make sure I rinse stuff out of the canal.

Oh and re the OP question - I use about 4 ml to 100 ml water

hehehe Yes I had to encourage him to resist the urge to shake his head and I packed it in relatively firm as per vet instructions.

He has absolutely giant ear canals so getting the cotton wool in and out was not a problem. He has a mite, bacteria and yeast problem at the moment, (so is on ear drops as well; and we are using the malaseb as shampoo too). But I think your method would be the best bet for regular ear maintenance.

Bit Off Topic -

By the way has anyone ever used 'epiotic'? That is what I used to use. I would just be curious to see if anyone thought epiotic was better/worse than malaseb for eat maintenance?

[Rappie]

The dilution rate to use Malaseb as an ear cleaner is 1:50

[Sankari]

Epiotic stung my dogs ears something terrible. She never squeals with the malaseb like she did with that hence the reason i have stuck with it.

[Clyde]

Bit Off Topic -

By the way has anyone ever used 'epiotic'? That is what I used to use. I would just be curious to see if anyone thought epiotic was better/worse than malaseb for eat maintenance?

IMO, Epiotic causes more issues than anything else.

[spottychick]

Epiotic stung my dogs ears something terrible. She never squeals with the malaseb like she did with that hence the reason i have stuck with it.

Mine too.

A gentler one is the PAW cleaner which I use for regular maintenance when they have no ear problems. I just wipe out the ear with it and only dribble a bit into the ear.

[Sankari]

Thanks for the suggestion, i'll try the PAW one sometime to see how she goes with it.

[spottychick]

Youre welcome LC

By th way Raineth - that's one handsome pooch you have in your sig

[raineth]

Epiotic stung my dogs ears something terrible. She never squeals with the malaseb like she did with that hence the reason i have stuck with it.

Oh no! that makes so much sense. When Mr Darcy was attending puppy preschool the Vet nurse grabbed him and squirted epioitc into both his ears. He freaked out and after that would run around rubbing the side of his head at just the site of the epiotic bottle. So all I ended up doing was using cotton wool with some epiotic to clean his ears out fortnightly. My new guy actually really enjoys his ears being cleaned with the malaseb.

Youre welcome LC

By th way Raineth - that's one handsome pooch you have in your sig

Thank you he had a beautiful spirit too

[cavNrott]

I'm using Malacetic Otic for one of my Cavs who gets yeasty ears. This is the best ear cleaner I've used. I was using 1:50 Malaseb but the Malacetic Otic is having better and quicker results.