We've got a foster here at the moment that's an ex-puppy farm breed bitch. She was homed, then passed onto rescue. We had no explanation as to why she was put into rescue but I think we're starting to piece bits of it together.

She's really hand shy and shows very little emotion when it comes to people. A few times when I've come to put her on a lead she's air-snapped at me. Its taken a few days to gain some trust before she would allow me to look her over. It turns out she's got a massive ear infection. She's been to the vets today and wouldn't let the vet near enough to have a proper look. The vet then muzzled her, at this point she went mad, growling, lunging and screaming ( I'm guessing at some point in her life she's had bad experiences with muzzles ). Obviously, seeing her in so much distress I took the muzzle off of her and she calmed down. The problem I now have is, I have a dog that needs antibiotic drops in her ears that she's understandably very protective over.

She's not been here long enough to realise that not all people are bad/ going to hurt her or to build up a bond with me. I've managed to get the drops in one of her ears as she was distracted with her nose in my cup of tea I'm just wondering if anyone has any tips on how best to deal with this? She's also massivly overweight (9kg) which is putting a strain on her joints again causing her even more pain, so bribery with food isn't really an option unless its low fat

Can you use her normal meal ration?

I would do the building up, touch, treat, touch treat, bottle near ear, treat, drop treat - you know the score - very very gradually.

Otherwise, if it's urgent like it sounds like it is, then it may just be a case of getting on with it I know it's not ideal, but the chances are if she is in pain, then she's going to be reactive anyway. It can take ages to gain trust to handle a dog (been there) and unfortunately if treatment is necessary in the mean time there is no quick way around it.

I've started with treat, touch, treat show her the bottle today with her food. She's happy to sniff the bottle and have the back of her ears stroked but when you get anywhere near the front she starts grumbling.

Obviously she'll get the treatment one way or another, I had thought about getting them in when she's sleeping but I don't want to make her defensive when she's asleep. I think I'll just have to take the bull by the horns so to speak and hopefully keep all my limbs intact

Sticking my neck out vastly here, I think it would possibly be safer to do it while she is aware of what you're doing. Trying to trick her into it while eating, sleeping etc may set up more negative associations and create more problems. I could be wrong.

Sasha is FA when we have to do anything which resembles medical care unless we can do it at arm's length. If it's non urgent, I can take time, build up etc. If it's urgent then the muzzle goes on and it's just done as quickly as I can.

It's lovely to be able to take a lot of time over something and you can for example claw clipping etc, but if it's something which is causing pain and discomfort anyway, then it's probably just as well to get it over and done with quick quick.

I hope someone can tell me I am wrong.

That was my trail of thought and I don't want to add any more problems to her list. We'll get there one way or another. She seems to be a bit of a tea belly and while she's got her snoz in a cup she can't open her mouth wide enough to get hold. I'll dig out my old leathers to give me a bit of protection. Poor girl, I feel so sorry for her

Good luck

I would still do the treat and treat routine You will probably find over time she will associate the two, or she may not, depending on stress levels.

How 'liquid' are the drops? Could you wet a small piece of cotton wool with the drops and squeeze the drops out of the cotton wool into her ear. It may not be as obvious to her what you are doing.

is there anyone who could help you? like try to keep her calm by soothing her with words?

I've got a similar problem with the Dane I'm housesitting for at the moment. His ears are horrid and he needs drops but he really objects. And 85kg of Great Dane objecting is not pleasant. His ears are too sore, and he has too long a history of his ears being sore to have time to take the softly softly approach. Once his ears are less sore then we will do some work with him about having his ears handled quietly and build up to the bottle of drops.

With him I prepare his food, muzzle him (unfortunately he's not a boy I will take chances with again) and do the drops as quickly as I can. I whisk the muzzle off and he races to have his breakfast. The first day he tried to hide his head so I couldn't muzzle him but I waited him out and he has learnt that to have breakfast we have to go through the rigmarole of his ears. He still doesn't enjoy the drops going in but he shoves his head in the muzzle as if to say get it over with then, and lets me rub in below his ears with quite a relaxed look on his face.

We had a similar problem with my dalmatian.

We got him to lie on the floor, on his side and stroked him slowly and continued stroking and talking calmly to keep him relaxed.

When he was relaxed I covered his eyes with my hand and continued to stroke and talk to him.

My husband then folded the ear flap back and waited to make sure he was still relaxed. He then held the bottle above the ear and let the drops fall into the ear.

My dog accepted this, but he flipped if the bottle touched his ear.

After some praise and treats we repeated for the other ear.


i now use Thornit instead of drops and he actually comes and rubs his ears on us when they are annoying him, then goes to the cupboard where it is kept. He stands quite happily while I put some powder on his ears.

The powder should not be put into the ear canal, only on the outside and them massaged.

I tried this today and she's really wary of anything aproaching her ears, so it didn't go to plan but it was worth a try

Its already a two man operation and we both keep talking to her to try and keep her calm. We managed it today, again by letting her stick her snoz in the bottom of a cup of tea and getting one side in while she wasn't looking. Then when she'd got her foot in the ear of the one we'd managed to get drops into, we managed to get some in the other ear.

Followed by lots of praise and some of her food allowance. I'm grateful she doesn't weigh 85kg , she's challenging enough at 43