Am on my third lab. Two of them so far have had pretty chronic ear problems. The wife, bless her heart, finally figured out why. We tried all sorts of things. Changed his food thinking it's food allergies. Nope. Cleaned the carpets like a freaking 5-star motel and still no help. Of course we were going to the vet. He;d give us ottomax wich kinda sort of maybe might have helped the symptoms but not really a cure. Damn we used a lot of that stuff and it's expensive to use on a really big dog.
Next he got a pretty bad infection which cleared right up after dosing him a while with the ear meds doc sold me.
Then it all started up again. Crap...
So the wife did some research on his symptoms that a trained vet surgeon missed!?!?!
His skin turns black in a lot of places like his belly, nuts,and around his eyes.
He gets crusty skin patches under his armpits and some on the rear legs too.
Chews and licks on his feet a lot.
Licks his belly button raw. That spot right in front of his penis.
Turns out he's suffering from yeast. He begs for bread and pizza crusts and she's been giving it to him. Tried getting her to not do it but too late it got done.
The cure. Two things we're doing seems to be kicking ass on his problem.
1. Been spraying him with a solution of vinegar and water. 1 part vinegar and 8 parts water.
2. Feeding him a couple tablespoons a day of this stuff called Kefir.
Not sure why but it's working. I think it's neutralizing the yeast in his gut.
His ears are nice and pink now. The blackness is going away and his fur is looking a whole lot better plus his fur got really soft.
Am sort of pissed that my high dollar vet could not tell me how to take care of the dog so he would not need expensive meds. Been fighting yeasty-dog for years and now I now why. Never let a dog eat bread.