hi this is may 18th and i have several calls from people asking me how to pluck their puppy's ears it's something that's really important that you do and maintain if you're going to groom at home but if you're going to go to a groomer at least you should know what to look for when you get back from the groomer so i have my guinea pig little poodle puppy she's got really hairy ears um so we decided that we'd show you her ears the biggest thing when you go to do ears there's a couple things you're going to need in your arsenal uh you're going to need some ear cleaner and do not use soap and water you need some ear cleaner with some aloe alcohol some astringent in it so their ears do dry and they don't stay moist the other thing you'll need is an ear plucking powder which this one happens to be from pet edge which is a great place to get it i think this runs six or seven dollars for an 80 gram bottle so that'll i would check prices on pet edge.com this is nothing more than a gripping powder to let you pull the hair out of their ears it doesn't have any astringent value medical value nothing just lets you help to pull the hair out when it's oily and won't slip through your hands so those two things are extremely important in fact you can't do it without ear powder a lot of you have told me that oh i just cut the hair out of my dog's ears that doesn't work because you're cutting it off you're still leaving the hair down in that canal to block the air from circulating the other thing you'll need is some q-tips regular q-tips at home are fine we just go through so many hundred a year that we buy them in bags of a hundred at a time all right so let's start on tinker's ears um i let these grow purposely not cleaning them not doing anything to them for about 13-14 weeks because i wanted to be able to show you this um this is an average hair growth you're going to have unfortunately the schnoodles get the hair from their ancestor the poodle schnauzers don't have quite as much if this stays in here and stays blocked with the ear over and no air circulating she will get a yeast infection in this ear so the first thing i'm going to do is i usually do this on a groom table but you can do this this way at home too you can pin them between your knees you don't want to be their best friend so you're not going to want to talk to them don't use a baby voice don't make them pay attention to you they're here to do something and they have to sit here till you're done she's a little bit shaky because she's not nerd she doesn't really know what we're going to do to her yet i'm going to take the ear powder and i'm going to sprinkle it freely in her ear you don't most people have a tendency to want to come in here and pat it around you don't want to do that just leave it set then you're going to grab small portions of the hair i'm going to save this for you and show you i guess i better put it down here it's windy there went my hair uh well we'll try and show you how much we get out of here and i'm going to go in here and i'm going to pull little pieces now some of you might pull your puppy's ears and pluck them like this and the puppy may scream bloody murder let me see if i can hide this hair without it blowing somewhere um it this is like plucking your ears or plucking yours plucking your eyebrows for the first time it's not very comfortable so this is ear is a great handle hold their ear use your thumb and your index to control this ear and that way and you can also face it still let that hand go you can turn this ear inside out there's a big area right there that has a lot of hair that comes out of it and you want to keep right on plucking don't be surprised if you have there's a little spot um i just saw it if you pull a chunk out sometimes you'll leave it red it might even look like it's going to bleed a little bit it's like where there's a little capillary at but it is irritating to the ear for the first time but this is something that's extremely important whether you have a schnoodle especially if you have a poodle she says now i probably could get down in here easier if i had a hemostat or a pair of tweezers i don't want to do that because if i do and i pinch her she's never going to let me do this again and you can clean off this ear leather as far up as you want to go on your puppy all right there's kind of a pre look and i haven't cleaned it yet so then i'm going to take the ear cleaner and i'm going to put a few squirts down in their ear turn her around and put some pressure on it and kind of wash board it back and forth because i'm doing like a scrubbing motion where i'm cleaning that air out then i take a couple of q-tips and i go right down in this ear and i go about the length of the q-tip in here i'm not going down in i'm not going to injure the eardrum i'm really just going all around this ear i'm cleaning it out cleaning the dirt out she doesn't have two dirty ears that's a good thing if you get a black gunk out of your ear and it's smelly you probably have an ear infection now becky can get down in here and show you there's that ear canal really cleaned out really nice and stay there back and i'll show you the dirty one there's the one we haven't done yet huge huge difference she says ah okay let's turn you around and we'll do this here also how what's our time like back 5 17. okay all right we're going to sprinkle the powder in here oh i really got you powdery that time and i'm just going to start plucking oh i was going to show you this is everything that came out of her ear canal minus the little chunk that flew off in the in the breeze a few minutes ago so there is a lot that comes out of these ears it's amazing how much puppies how much they have this does get easier on the puppy as they get older it's kind of like women that pluck they're only turning away and get a hold of them when they pluck their eyebrows it seems to get easier as you age it also slows the hair growth down it's not something you'll ever be completely rid of doing unfortunately but this is takes at least eight to ten weeks to get this long again pulling that from way down in those are long pieces so there's no sense in even trying to do this again before eight to ten weeks from now so this is something that is if you go to a groomer make sure you look at your dog's ears before you leave the grooming parlor if they are not cleaned out and they don't look as clean as tinkers does when i'm finished ask them to go back in and clean them again that's probably the most important part of your grooming that you're gonna get from your groomer is your ears your toenails uh i'd say ears are top on the list toenails are second and anal glands and a hygiene clip are third all right now let's go in here and put some cleaner in there i know that's cold in a tinker and i'm gonna scrub that back and forth clean that all around take my q-tips go down in here and clean this out all right and there's that ear all finished and cleaned out if there's a lot of hair right in front of the ears she's pretty wet to do this but if there's a lot of hair here on a schnoodle because you don't trim them like a poodle i would trim the hair out right in front of her ears that way when this ear hangs down it still lets the air get up in there and circulate you needed your ears trimmed a little bit better anyway i missed you all right so i hope that helps um if you have any questions or you want my homemade recipe for my ear cleaner please give me uh drop me an email or give me a call and i'll be glad to help you with any of your questions so good luck on plucking your ears