Ear hair has to be plucked out of the ears....duhhhh!!
 

Okay so looking back at least 2 breeders and a vet told me to pluck Sherman Tanks ear hair out of his ears. What part did I not understand? Looking back it is plain as day....I trimmed his ear hair but never fully realized "pluck the hair in his ears out of his ears from the roots" is what I was to do. WOW and I consider myself smart!!!!:( I noticed Sherman has not been sleeping well which translates into none of us have been sleeping as he has been scratching his ears madly and moaning all night long. I took him to the vet AGAIN for ear issues and imagine how stupid I felt when the vet asked me how come I didnt pull the hair from his ears after the last time he was there with ear problems :confused:? Ummmmm because I did not really think 3 people who were respected professionals especially with yorkies all REALLY wanted me to rip the hair out of his ears:eek: Thanks to my blond roots (that is what I am blaming this on) My SWEET precious adoreable love bug has a NASTY ear infection in BOTH ears:eek:.
A lesson for me is if I dont think people mean what they say or I think it seems drastic then I need to ask for clarification. I am soooooo sorry my boy has to go through this and will make sure he never has to go through this type of thing due to my negligence again!!! Just thought I would share incase someone else can learn from my mistake!

Great post, and great reminder that there is nothing wrong with asking for clarification. People sometimes over simplify because they have no knowledge of your experience in the area. I thought plucking sounded painful too and was amazed when Joey didn't even flinch when I did it. I've read that some groomers suggest "trimming" the hair with a scissors, and thought this was wrong, but your posts explains what can happen if you do this.

I've never had to do that with Tatum. Maybe her ear hair just doesn't grow long. Have heard of it though.... sounds painful but other Yorkie owners say it's not that bad.

aweee.e.....when i used to be a grooming assistant i LOVED plucking ear hair! you gotta get a power to loosen up the ear hair, and we would use a hemostat to grab all that extra hair out of the ear canal! i would really tell you to use a vet/groomer, if you don't know how to do it properly! lol

ear hairs
 

sorry about your baby's ear infection
I am a fairly new yorkie Mom (since July)
do you know when ear plucking should be started
& how often it should be down?

Personally I hate the thought of pulling hair out the ears of my furbutts. After seeing my sweet little shih tzu shy away from us touching her ears after she visited our first groomer a couple of times I opted for no plucking. Our current and wonderful favorite groomer knows to trim the ear hair on all of my pups. (Three of them are yorkies). In ten - going on eleven years I have NEVER had and ear ache or infection in any of my dogs. I check their ears regularly - heck I check EVERYTHING on them regularly and I see no problem with clipping instead of plucking.

ear hair has to be plucked
 

Thanks Lou
I don't really want to pluck if it isn't necessary

Hair inside the ear can cause moisture to stay longer, and this is what leads to infection. You need to be really careful when bathing, and make sure the ears are dry afterwards. Dogs are all different, but I swear for some, it cause no discomfort what's-so-ever. Joey's the biggest baby in the world, and he doesn't even move when I pluck the hair. Just make sure you get no ear hair, only hair from inside the canal. This video shows how to pluck the hair, and she does say that some dogs are more sensitive than others.

It all depends on the dogs. I have one whoses need to be plucked not the rest. Triming will not cut it (sorry) in these dogs. The hair grown so far down in the ear canal it can't just be trimmed

So how do you know if you have a pup that needs to be plucked and one that doesn't? A wait and see if any problems arise kind of thing?

I must admit I have read this before on YT and with the differing of opinions (some say if you pluck it causes problems, others say you must pluck to prevent problems, others say it varies on pet), I really would prefer NOT to pluck unless I am being careless not to. I will definitely have to add this one to my list to ask our vet but would love opinions from YTers.

Thank you in advance!

Plucking his ear hair did not hurt him one bit he actually seemed to enjoy it. I have NEVER had a dog with an ear infection either. I will keep his ear hair plucked as this is what the vet recommended. It seems to me NOT plucking the hair is what caused the problem so it makes sense to solve the problem and just pluck the hair then to leave it to harbor another infection. Sherman Tank was VERY uncomfortable with the ear infection but wasnt even the slight bit bothered by the plucking. PS trimming in the vets opinion made it worse she said the shorter hairs just gets the water to the ear canal faster.

thank you for the video.. I have been shying away from ear plucking, was afraid I would do something wrong..let ya know the outcome..lol

That's very interesting, and I believe it makes a great deal of sense, never thought of that before.

I do believe it does vary on different pets and possibly different ways of grooming? I've never plucked the hair in my yorkies ears and have never had any ear problems at all. I always blow dry after their baths and on a cool setting dry the inside of their ears (holding the dryer several inches away from their ears). So, possibly since I'm making sure the inside of the ear is dry, the moisture isn't in the ear long enough to create problems.

I seldom pluck Uni's ears. she doesn't really have that much hair to begin with. You can always smell their ears and if there's a funky smell then there is a problem. The little yorkie boy I fostered a while back always had ear infections. his ears STUNK! I think his previous owner would always take him to a not so good groomer. She didn't really do much with him either.