Ear Infection? Allergies?

Oakland · February 2015

It started small but all of a sudden Nyx started going nuts, flicking her ears like crazy and then proceeding to rub her ear/face over every surface in our house. She then started to spastically kick her hind legs and shake her head violently. Clearly something's up with her ears but there's no small, discharge, brown wax- no other symptoms to indicate ear infection. Poor thing now keeps trying to nap but then wakes herself up by flicking her ears and/or kicking back her hind legs involuntarily. I noticed her ears seemed mildly irritated last night but it didn't seem that significant.

Has anyone else experienced this? I don't know if it's early stages of an ear infection, seasonal allergies (there has been a crazy amount of pollen in the air lately), or both. Should I take her to the vet? Give her some benadryl?

WrylyBrindle · February 2015

Benadryl for now, then get her to the vet tomorrow so they can look deep into her ears and confirm. Raging ear infections are no fun, and administering ear drops any longer than necessary isnt much fun either.
Allergies can "Show up" in yeast overgrowth in the ears and in itchy paws.- it could be pollen or even a food issue. (as an example: one of my dogs had terrible, frequent yeasty ear infections as a youngster when i knew less about good dog foods- I fed Nutro at the time- but once I got all corn wheat and soy out of her diet and fed her higher caliber foods, no more ear infections.)

Oakland · February 2015

Thanks- it doesn't seem as bad now but we'll take her in tomorrow!

GrayJJ · February 2015

My shiba does that but he has seasonal allergies so he does get quite itchy sometimes.

You can also try a non-medicated ear cleaner (just the saline stuff) and wipe Nyx's ears? That might help if it's just irritated from something simple.

Myabee09 · February 2015

Did you go to the vet? It could be ear mites. It's really hard to see them without one of those magnifying tools. They can give you drops at the vet if that's what it is.

bmass49 · February 2015

My shiba has a lot of trouble with allergies. How much benadryl should he get? Hes about 30 lbs right now and just over two years old. The vet in the past has given him small quantities of medicine to fix it, but I am looking to be more preventative when summer comes around.
Thanks!

Calia · February 2015

Do you have video of this, it's hard to picture what he is doing from your description and doesn't quite sound like a normal reaction to ear issues.

*JackBurton* · February 2015

If you get a chance give a light scratching along the back of the ears. See if that triggers the back legs to start kicking and moving. Also give a quick check of the paws and smell the area around the ear. Do you notice any yeast like smell like others have given.

For benadryl the rule of thumb is 25lbs = 1 25mg tablet. But before that becomes an everyday deal you should first figure out if you have an allergy issue and if you do you need to find the source.

ShikokuSpirit · March 2015

Check for any kind of an bacterial infection or mites. Please keep us updated with the results.

The random rear leg kicking might just be what I like to call "The Shikoku Donkey Kick". No idea what causes this...just weird muscle spasm? I have taken my dogs in for their patella/knee exam and they checked out normal.

Oakland · March 2015

Thanks everyone! She stopped freaking out and seemed to get better within the next hour. We looked into her ear later in the evening and it looked like there were few little bites so I think that might explain it. There's been no more scratching since I last posted so I think that rules out ear mites. (I hope?) No yeasty smell anywhere so I'm pretty sure it wasn't food allergies.

She does seem prone to seasonal allergies and we're still keeping a close eye on her but it seems like she's in the clear.

CrimsonO2 · March 2015

The ghost donkey kick is not limited to yours....my two also do it from time to time in the most random situations.

Jesse

Ear Infection? Allergies?

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