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What To Use To Soothe Sore Fly Bitten Ears?


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My GSD has been attacked quite badly in the past week by flies. I thought they had died down a bit and didnt put fly spray on her for a few days and now the poor thing has been really bitten. When I discovered she had been bitten I put fly spray on her head and near her ears but I didnt want to hurt her on the already sore bits so I missed them. I put some paw paw ointment to heal them but all that did was seem to attract more flies and dirt. Today they are icky.

I have bathed them with some salt water and applied some Dettol antiseptic cream and she is inside. Is there anything else I should do? How often should I bathe them? She still has some of that black crusty type stuff (not sure if its fly crap or dirt from the paw paw ointment) on there but I dont want to clean too hard in case it hurts her. I would love to put some pawpaw ointment on while she is inside but I have NEW CARPET :laugh: . I really dont want it all stuck to the carpet if I can help it.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Oh and my staffy hasn't one single bite.

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Salt water is great and safe :laugh: . I would carry on with that but clean really gently, fly bite ears can BLEED. Don't use Dettol :laugh: is can be be very irritant especially for animals and is not a terrible effective antiseptic. An old fashioned treatment was'purple spray', Cetrigen? from horse places. It helps repel flys and is a safe antiseptic, don't use it inside though!

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Salt water is great and safe :laugh: . I would carry on with that but clean really gently, fly bite ears can BLEED. Don't use Dettol :laugh: is can be be very irritant especially for animals and is not a terrible effective antiseptic. An old fashioned treatment was'purple spray', Cetrigen? from horse places. It helps repel flys and is a safe antiseptic, don't use it inside though!

Its Dettol ointment not the runny stuff. I didnt think it would sting. She didnt seem to pull away when I applied it. I will keep going with the salt water and hopefully that will soothe them. Thanks.

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Personally i would never presume the problem isnt there.Once eaten they seem to be a problem all the time so be sure to prevent flies as much aspossible.

Make sure the areas outside are clean ,if feeding bones etc again ensure the area faterwards is clean to avoid encouraging flies.Use the fly traps & apply fly repellant to the ears religously.

We suggest to people to apply white zinc cream.It is soothing but the flies find it very hard to penetrate,alsoo bath as much as possible.The quicker you get the build up off the less the flies seek that dog.

There are also a number of good products that are used on horses for fly repleeing that can be used on dogs.

The purple spray is great stuff

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Try Septicide (it a cream) its really good or even the cheapo Troy brand Fly Repella is quite ok, its probably cheaper at a stock feed outlet. Horse shops will have it or pet shops should but it will be dearer.

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For my GSDs who were getting their ear tips eaten something chronic i used Advantix and then put pawpaw ointment or fresh aloe on the ear tips to help heal them. Once the Advantix was on the dog the flies didn't go after them so the pawpaw or aloe was enough to heal the tips easily.

I tried everything i had been advised to use...and either had to apply it several times a day for it to be effective - fine on weekends but not when i was at work. I tried longer lasting oil based and petrolium based products...these didn't do tooo bad in keeping the flies off but they glugged up the ear fur (gave them dags on their ears!) and caused it to fall out - not a good look on fluff butt GSD's :o

Since using the Advantix i've not had a problem with flies etc - and no...i'm not connected with promoting the product! :laugh:

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  • 2 weeks later...
My GSD has been attacked quite badly in the past week by flies. I thought they had died down a bit and didnt put fly spray on her for a few days and now the poor thing has been really bitten. When I discovered she had been bitten I put fly spray on her head and near her ears but I didnt want to hurt her on the already sore bits so I missed them. I put some paw paw ointment to heal them but all that did was seem to attract more flies and dirt. Today they are icky.

I have bathed them with some salt water and applied some Dettol antiseptic cream and she is inside. Is there anything else I should do? How often should I bathe them? She still has some of that black crusty type stuff (not sure if its fly crap or dirt from the paw paw ointment) on there but I dont want to clean too hard in case it hurts her. I would love to put some pawpaw ointment on while she is inside but I have NEW CARPET :) . I really dont want it all stuck to the carpet if I can help it.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Oh and my staffy hasn't one single bite.

One of my girls gets this quite bad in summer and I used to apply Panalog (available from the vets), until someone told me to rub vaseline on her ears. Decided to give it a try and although its not the best look (greasy ears), it really does work - just wash it off when we have a show.

I also spray them with fly repellant available from most horse stores.

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  • 1 month later...

With Zero's ears we use a combination of lanolin which soothes and moisturises the area with a spray fly repellant over the top - this way the flies can't actually get to the sores, they don't scar and the fly repellant doesn't actually touch the dog's skin because the lanolin gets in the way. We asked our vet if this was a good idea and she started using it on her dogs! If the dog doesn't show then i've also heard the trimming the ear fur to the skin helps - it means that the dog can rub his or her ears on the ground when they feel a fly there but the fly can't get caught in the hair and doesn't have the hair as a buffer between the fly and the ground. Zero used to get the flys burrowed into the hair on the tips of his ears and no amount of scratching would get them out!

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Elmo has what I think is fly bite. He had a sore ear which seemed to heal, now its all raw and bleeding - even though I haven't seen any flies around him lately?? Does fly bite look yucky and black or scabby? I was using an antiseptic fly repellent cream (can't remember the name) but it seems to be making it worse now. I washed it with salt water to ge the gunk off it looks so sore. Im taking him to the vet on saturday morning :rofl: Poor mr elmo.

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Since using the Advantix i've not had a problem with flies etc - and no...i'm not connected with promoting the product! :)

Just wanted to clarify - are you putting Advantix on their ears? Or applying it monthly as a drip-on?

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