Hi!
I can totally relate to the ear cleaning problem. We are currently dealing with an ear infection in our 8 year old landseer rescue who
hates having his ear touched. He gets snappy if we try and put medicine in his ear. This is a dog who had a bad mouthing problem when he came to us to start with. We have already been working on it, but the infection has made things worse. We have done two things with him.
One, we are doing tons of short positive reinforcement training sessions with his ears. For instance, we touch his ear, praise him, give a treat. Lift his ear flap, praise, treat. Just touch his ear again, praise, treat. And so on. We use hot dog bits as he loves them! He only gets them when we are doing ear training. The point is to get him used to us touching his ear and not have him become mouthy or snappy. That being said, it is a little tricky at the moment as he does have a full blown ear infection and we have to get the medicine in his ear. So we are pushing him harder than we normally would.
Two, we got a muzzle. Not ideal and actually we haven't really used it, but we are working on getting him used to it for the future. We worked with a behaviorist before this for our other rescue and she taught us the proper way to introduce a muzzle to a dog. (We never ended up using it for our little guy, but we still have all the information.) CK has a mouthing problem that is rather extreme so this might not be the route you want to take. It is also a slow process to get a dog used to and to like a muzzle. In his case we needed a safety check for
us because of his extreme reaction. We also know we are going to need it when he goes to the vet to get his nails trimmed. But it is very important to make sure you introduce it properly and make it fun and not scary. The dog needs to like wearing it.
That being said, it doesn't sound like you need to go that route and I would really caution about using a muzzle. Try lots of positive reps touching her ear. Get out the bottles or whatever you normally use to clean her ears, but don't actually do it. Pick up the bottle and then give her a treat. Touch the outside of her ear with the bottle and then treat her, ect. Get her used to the sight of them and you just playing and touching her ears. Lots of treats and praise. It will take some time, especially if she already has a bad association with it, but she will eventually learn that ear cleaning means really yummy treats and praise. Hang in there! Things will get better if you consistently practice. I mean, hey, it took 2 1/2 months of everyday training, but we can brush CK now! And we didn't think he would ever get better!
