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Ooops, I don't know what's going on but I ended up in a very old thread. Peggy asked me to share this on it's own thread so here I am.
For my big ol' SPOO, he purely hates having the hair pulled from his ears. Doesn't matter what powder I use, technique I use. If I have to completely empty his ears that way he becomes very headshy for months which compounds the problems. So I changed tactics. I found a human hear/nose trimmer that has sort of a long snout on it. I hold the ear hair in my left hand, turn the device on, rock it back & forth against the ear hair & it just zzzzzz it's way through the hairs & we remove them. Early on when we first moved to a new house, my lighting wasn't very good & I foolishly thought this thing was part of his ear... it wasn't, it's awful to admit but I let huge hair balls form in his ear thinking that was skin. Once I discovered it I knew action had to be taken & this is the device we used to clear it out. Now, it takes patience. So if you expect it to work like your high powered clippers... you'll want to throw the thing at me. It doesn't. You are taking tiny hairs at a time & you have to learn how to apply pressure so it doesn't overcome the blade & it takes patience but it's so worth it for him to have clean ears, no fight, & life is good. I've shared this with some groomers & they too have been surprised IF they're patient long enough. The beauty of it is that you'd have to do something really stupid to hurt the dog with it. I tested the thing on myself & 1 time after a lot of crazy tests it pinched me but did not break the skin. I used a brand new set of batteries completely up before I would put fresh ones in & test them on my dog. I don't go at it lightly.
My boy is not quite 2 years old & has had the hair balls (that was earlier this year) & beyond that has never had any ear trauma. He still doesn't completely trust the ear buzzer (which is what I call the nose/ear trimmer). Once it's over with he is very happy. Honestly I would buzz his ears every other day if he had thick hair rather than do the pluck thing. I am not saying others are wrong for plucking. I've seen dogs that half fall asleep while it's being done. Mr. Layne is so very good on the groom table but it was heading to be a big battle over the ears.
PS... Peggy, thanks for calling that to my attention. I had a list of topics & didn't realize some were brand new, some are OLD.
For my big ol' SPOO, he purely hates having the hair pulled from his ears. Doesn't matter what powder I use, technique I use. If I have to completely empty his ears that way he becomes very headshy for months which compounds the problems. So I changed tactics. I found a human hear/nose trimmer that has sort of a long snout on it. I hold the ear hair in my left hand, turn the device on, rock it back & forth against the ear hair & it just zzzzzz it's way through the hairs & we remove them. Early on when we first moved to a new house, my lighting wasn't very good & I foolishly thought this thing was part of his ear... it wasn't, it's awful to admit but I let huge hair balls form in his ear thinking that was skin. Once I discovered it I knew action had to be taken & this is the device we used to clear it out. Now, it takes patience. So if you expect it to work like your high powered clippers... you'll want to throw the thing at me. It doesn't. You are taking tiny hairs at a time & you have to learn how to apply pressure so it doesn't overcome the blade & it takes patience but it's so worth it for him to have clean ears, no fight, & life is good. I've shared this with some groomers & they too have been surprised IF they're patient long enough. The beauty of it is that you'd have to do something really stupid to hurt the dog with it. I tested the thing on myself & 1 time after a lot of crazy tests it pinched me but did not break the skin. I used a brand new set of batteries completely up before I would put fresh ones in & test them on my dog. I don't go at it lightly.
My boy is not quite 2 years old & has had the hair balls (that was earlier this year) & beyond that has never had any ear trauma. He still doesn't completely trust the ear buzzer (which is what I call the nose/ear trimmer). Once it's over with he is very happy. Honestly I would buzz his ears every other day if he had thick hair rather than do the pluck thing. I am not saying others are wrong for plucking. I've seen dogs that half fall asleep while it's being done. Mr. Layne is so very good on the groom table but it was heading to be a big battle over the ears.
PS... Peggy, thanks for calling that to my attention. I had a list of topics & didn't realize some were brand new, some are OLD.