# Ear Injury



## BorderKelpie (Dec 3, 2011)

Interesting (and scary for you). 

Any chance of a kid wrapping a rubber band around the end of his ear? We've seen a lot of that sort of stuff at the vet clinic. Possible fly strike? (I don't know where you are, so I am not sure what weather you're having). Is he an older guy? Could this be a peripheral neuropathy issue? 

How is he otherwise?

I wish you and him all the best.


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## Kloliver (Jan 17, 2012)

BorderKelpie said:


> Interesting (and scary for you).
> 
> Any chance of a kid wrapping a rubber band around the end of his ear? We've seen a lot of that sort of stuff at the vet clinic. Possible fly strike? (I don't know where you are, so I am not sure what weather you're having). Is he an older guy? Could this be a peripheral neuropathy issue?
> 
> ...


I'm just sick about this..... no kids, just 1 yr old, weather zone 5b so its winter but not that cold & he's not out long enough to worry (he misses his mum.)

He's completely fine otherwise. I'm stressing, not him; not 1 little bit. He was playing with the other dogs just before the groomer discovered this so its obviously not bugging him.
My heart just aches for him though. No kids, he's my baby. Hubby keeps reminding me, he's not...... but the heart says otherwise


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## BorderKelpie (Dec 3, 2011)

(Your hubby's wrong, your heart is right - JMO)


Anyway, did the vet find anything unusual with his ear, I mean, besides part of it falling off - I guess that's weird enough.

Does he play rough with other dogs or even a cat? Do you have a parrot? I'm just wondering if he could have gotten a nick, scratch, or bite that became infected. I would think that most parrots would remove the ear right then and there, so I guess possibly damaged by another animal playmate or even a bad bump to his ear. At only a year old, I am guessing he still plays pretty hard and isn't always the most graceful critter yet. 

On the bright side, it doesn't appear to bother him, you were alerted to it and took proper care of it and the hair will grow to cover it. I have a short haired dog (Kelpie) who is missing almost half of one ear and the other is notched pretty severly. There's no hiding that. She is easy to pick out of a crowd, though. (It was the result of a dog attack long before I even met her). Her amputated ear never seems to bother her, so I am guessing your boy will be just fine. You, on the other hand, have got to not feel so badly about it. 

He is now even more ruggedly handsome and has a battle scar to show off to his friends.  
(Wonder what kind of story he'll make up for that?)

Pictures would be interesting, though.


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## Kloliver (Jan 17, 2012)

BorderKelpie said:


> (Your hubby's wrong, your heart is right - JMO)
> 
> 
> Anyway, did the vet find anything unusual with his ear, I mean, besides part of it falling off - I guess that's weird enough.


No, they weren't concerned as the tissue next to the necrotic was so darned normal. Lol- weird enough indeed.



BorderKelpie said:


> Does he play rough with other dogs or even a cat? Do you have a parrot? I'm just wondering if he could have gotten a nick, scratch, or bite that became infected.


No parrot- bad for migraine sufferers *grin* & I dont think a hawk wld take Rango on. He plays with his paws a lot & gambols, jumps over them & runs circles around them but they are all about the 1 yr mark so exhuberant as medium big dogs can be.



BorderKelpie said:


> On the bright side, it doesn't appear to bother him, you were alerted to it and took proper care of it and the hair will grow to cover it. I have a short haired dog (Kelpie) who is missing almost half of one ear and the other is notched pretty severly. There's no hiding that. She is easy to pick out of a crowd, though. (It was the result of a dog attack long before I even met her). Her amputated ear never seems to bother her, so I am guessing your boy will be just fine. You, on the other hand, have got to not feel so badly about it.


You're right, I've never experienced mama guilt before & this hit me hard, but I have to realise dogs experience pin & injury differently than we do 




BorderKelpie said:


> He is now even more ruggedly handsome and has a battle scar to show off to his friends.
> (Wonder what kind of story he'll make up for that?)
> Pictures would be interesting, though.


Who says Poodles aren't tough. Maybe I'll get him a biker jkt & a pith helmet......Grrrrrrrr..... that wld suck for the person he walks up to be head patted though.

THX for making me feel better about this. Hubby just rolls his eyes & says "Relax, stop obsessing"....(yada yada yada & no help whatsoever)


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## Kloliver (Jan 17, 2012)

BorderKelpie said:


> Pictures would be interesting, though.


They are in my folder if you'd like to see what happened. It's disturbing but not gory as it had already had many days to heal before we were aware of the issue.


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## BorderKelpie (Dec 3, 2011)

Actually, his ear looks pretty good considering. I would just keep an eye on it for a few days (I'm sure you've been checking it hourly lol) to make sure it isn't something that will happen again. 
If it helps at all, I've seen much, much worse heal really well. Dogs are pretty amazing.

He has a beautiful deep brown color to his hair, too.


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## lavillerose (Feb 16, 2011)

That is a very weird injury, especially with no evidence of bleeding. Maybe whatever happened was outside, so whatever bleeding happened there? Is he ever in your yard unsupervised or anything like that? But I think you'd still notice some dried blood—I would. 

If there was no blood evidence at all, I would think it was just one of those odd things the body does to heal itself. Maybe a very small injury eventually necrotized a larger area, or something.

But at least it wasn't too much ear to lose. I've seen some bad ones. One cocker spaniel I groom is missing pretty much half of one ear leather, a straight line right across. Scared the heck out of me when I started brushing. The owners didn't mention that, and she got normally styled long, full cocker ears, so I really couldn't see it until I was combing through.


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## Kloliver (Jan 17, 2012)

lavillerose said:


> That is a very weird injury, especially with no evidence of bleeding. Maybe whatever happened was outside, so whatever bleeding happened there? Is he ever in your yard unsupervised or anything like that?


I've wracked my brain playing What If.... & How could.... I just don't know. He has 12 acres to play on & the invisible fence wires are stationed a good 5' before the actual fenceline so he couldn't have hurt himself on that.



lavillerose said:


> But I think you'd still notice some dried blood—I would.  If there was no blood evidence at all, I would think it was just one of those odd things the body does to heal itself. Maybe a very small injury eventually necrotized a larger area, or something.


I guess it must have been an oddity. I've been treating his other war for a mild yeast infection so I've been vigilant about his ears. The drying rinse solution tends to matt the hair so I've been combing them both out regularly as he's also going through coat change. 

If it hadn't been groomer day he was due for his brushing. I wld have been combing out his ears & it wld have come off in my hand!!!!! BARF!  :afraid: :bawling: :Cry: :jaw:



lavillerose said:


> But at least it wasn't too much ear to lose.


 You're right, I have to stop feeling guilty & move on (but my poor bayyyyyyyyby *lol* I need more work on this)


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## partial2poodles (Feb 11, 2010)

I read about a groomer whose sharp scissors cut off the tip of an ear and she crazy glued it back on and the hair covered it. Only when it came off in the owners hand a week or so later was it discovered.


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## lavillerose (Feb 16, 2011)

The body will do odd things sometimes. My mom's big oily poodle gets sebaceous cysts sometimes, and instead of draining normally and closing up, one of them calcified over until it was the size of a pingpong ball and had to be surgically removed. None of his other cysts have ever done that, before or since.


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## Fluffyspoos (Aug 11, 2009)

How long are his ear leathers? Do they go far enough to reach the corner of his mouth? Vienna has eaten her ear hair off to the very tip of her ear leather, I'm waiting for the day she bites the ear itself OFF.


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## BorderKelpie (Dec 3, 2011)

I wonder if he could have been bitten by a venomous insect or spider and the tissue necrosed? Years ago, I had a dog that took a brown recluse bite to the face. That got pretty ugly before it finally healed. (and of course, it was my show dog, not one of the working farm dogs)

We'll probably never know for sure what happened, but we can have all kinds of fun thinking up theories. I'm just glad he's ok and he will be able to grow enough hair that it won't show. And, most importantly, that you weren't the one brushing him when it fell off. lol

Give the big guy a huge hug for me.


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