I have my dog groomed once a month. She has some hair in her ear but
none that goes down her ear canal. I'm relatively new to dog ownership
(approx 14 mos now), it never occurred to me that groomers might remove
ear hair in a way that was painful. I thought they were using some kind
of shaver. I just learned they pluck the hair. I know that if I pluck
my eyebrowns, it doesn't hurt at all, but there are other areas where if
plucked, it's very painful.

Does it hurt the dog to have hair plucked from their ears? It seems
like it would.

Is there an alternative, painless method to remove the hair? My dog
hates anything near her ears and squirms away, so using a shaver would
be difficult for me and possibly dangerous for her.

Any suggestions? Is it ok to leave hair as long as it doesn't extend
down beyond the ear opening?
Robin

elegy wrote:

On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 00:10:31 -0700, Robin wrote:


I have my dog groomed once a month. She has some hair in her ear but
none that goes down her ear canal. I'm relatively new to dog ownership
(approx 14 mos now), it never occurred to me that groomers might remove
ear hair in a way that was painful. I thought they were using some kind
of shaver. I just learned they pluck the hair. I know that if I pluck
my eyebrowns, it doesn't hurt at all, but there are other areas where if
plucked, it's very painful.

Does it hurt the dog to have hair plucked from their ears? It seems
like it would.

Is there an alternative, painless method to remove the hair? My dog
hates anything near her ears and squirms away, so using a shaver would
be difficult for me and possibly dangerous for her.

Any suggestions? Is it ok to leave hair as long as it doesn't extend
down beyond the ear opening?


it's probably uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as a raging ear
infection, which could result from leaving the hair which traps
moisture and icky stuff.

i used to have a miniature poodle and i plucked her ears by myself,
and as long as i went slowly and just pulled a little bit at a time,
she minded the standing still part a lot more than the plucking part.

My first paying job was shampooing and blowdrying poodles. We were
taught to remove (by plucking) the hair in the ear canals to keep it
from trapping dirt and moisture. The youngest puppies objected pretty
strenuously, but I'm pretty sure it was more about being restrained -
you don't want the dog jumping around while you're reaching in with the
tweezers - than about discomfort from the plucking itself. The older
dogs didn't seem to mind at all unless they already had some inflamation
brewing. And these were not particularly stoic animals. Several of
them would just as soon bite you as look at you, and would nail you for
anything from pulling too hard at a mat to simply reaching past them to
grab a comb or brush. I suspect that if the ear plucking procedure was
uncomfortable they'd have let me know.


Kathleen

In article ,
elegy wrote:

On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 00:10:31 -0700, Robin wrote:

I have my dog groomed once a month. She has some hair in her ear but
none that goes down her ear canal. I'm relatively new to dog ownership
(approx 14 mos now), it never occurred to me that groomers might remove
ear hair in a way that was painful. I thought they were using some kind
of shaver. I just learned they pluck the hair. I know that if I pluck
my eyebrowns, it doesn't hurt at all, but there are other areas where if
plucked, it's very painful.

Does it hurt the dog to have hair plucked from their ears? It seems
like it would.

Is there an alternative, painless method to remove the hair? My dog
hates anything near her ears and squirms away, so using a shaver would
be difficult for me and possibly dangerous for her.

Any suggestions? Is it ok to leave hair as long as it doesn't extend
down beyond the ear opening?

it's probably uncomfortable,

Uncomfortable...that's what the groomer's call it. What does that mean,
exactly?
1. Yes, it hurts.
2. It hurts but on a scale of 0 (no pain) to 10 (excruciating), it's a
(somewhere between 1 and 9?).

Robin wrote:

Uncomfortable...that's what the groomer's call it. What does that mean,
exactly?

My perception (from having plucked ears on a fair number of dogs) is that
it's more tickly than anything else. Compare it to this: blow in your dog's
ear. My dogs find that MUCH more objectionable than they do ear plucking,
but no way no how can that be said to be painful - annoying, maybe, but
not painful.

Dianne