Anyone use hemostats for ear hair?

I don't feel like I do a good enough job of pulling my dog's ear hair out with my fingers. I was thinking about buyinn a pair of hemostats and trying to use those instead. Are they hard to use? TIA

 

I wouldnt say they are hard to use BUT you do have to know how to use them, 2 things that can go wrong....1.is you can grab the skin instead of just the hair and will cause bleeding and possibly an infection and 2.if the dog jumps at the wrong time you can do some serious damage to the ear if the hemostat goes in too far (Ive also known one or two people that have accidentally poked their dogs eye with the hemostat because the dog jumped ), if the hair really needs to come out you might want to stick with just using your fingers.

 

:-s Umm......pardon my ignorance but question 1: why would you want to pull your dog's ear hair out? and question 2: what is a hemostat?

 

hemostat are those things that look like scissors, but sort of grip stuff
http://www.scissorsales.com/hemostat.html

but as to why/ I don't know? I don't mind Luthers ear hair?

 

Most dogs dont/shouldnt have the hairs pulled out but some breeds like 'some' poodles have a lot more hair in there than other breeds and for example if they have an ear infection you cant always get the medication in there adequately....if a dog has a re-occuring infection (and some dogs do have a lifetime problem with this) then its is recommended to keep the hairs at a minimum...its painful to have the hairs ripped out anyway and more painful when there is already a severe infection. Aslo some dogs hair grows excessively down into the canal, if these hairs get wet and cant dry then that in itself can cause infections. Pulling the hair out on a regular basis should only be done if a vet recommeds it for the health of the dog.

 

eeww gross I am so glad Luther does not have that!

 

Yep mine is one of those poodle mixes who has to have her ear hair pulled out.

Oh and it is not painful to the dog.

 

how do you know it's not painful to the dog?
I only say this cause I routinely pluck my husband's ear hair (don't tell me I told you). He's a Frenchman (both sides of his family) and I hate seeing that ear hair - so out it comes.
it hurts...well maybe if I didn't grasp 20,000 hairs at once it wouldn't hurt so much :mrgreen: :roll:

 

The vet, groomers, breeders, my dog trainer, other pet owners have told me this. It's not like human hair...it's more fuzz than hair. It's not like plucking your eyebrows.

Your hubby would PO'ed if he knew you told us! :x

 

Ive had many dogs snap, yelp or at least wince when Ive pulled the hair out of the ears....the same dog will sit there and not react to me sticking a needle in its leg or neck to get a blood sample, from that I would say plucking the hair is painful....however Ive worked with dogs that have come in regularly for hair removal from the ears, and I will say that they either become desensitized to the plucking or wonder if the skin itself toughens up after repeatedly plucking so they just dont feel it the same way. That said, for a dog that is prone to ear infections due to excessive hair in the canals, not enough space for air to circulate (like for dogs that enjoy swimming etc) or ongoing ear infections....ever try gettiing close enough to that dogs ears just to look inside....can be extremely painful, if it was one of my dogs they would get plucked regularly.

 

hmmm maybe if I "cleaned out" my hubby's ears more often he would get desensitized :mrgreen:
good thing he doesn't do message boards

 

Mary, cant you get those special 'trimmers' for ears, nose etc for people, I heard theyre not so painful.

ADDED:
Found this on-line

http://www.dealtime.com/xPR-ER421KC~RD-175887715972

 

LOL. The review of that trimmer is hysterical. :lol:

 

Maybe my dog's hair is different, but it's not really "plucking" when I pull her ear hair out. It's nothing like plucking an eyebrow hair. It doesn't come out like a rooted hair does. It's more like thin fuzz...think of pulling fuzz off a stuffed animal. I have thought about using the nose hair trimmer my husband has on Lucy's ears. But it makes a loud noise and I think it would scare her.

 

I would think something buzzing in her ear would be alarming. I'm sure you could desensitize if you really wanted to spend the time to do it.

 

I hope you are using ear chalk to loosen the hair in the dogs ear? And are you cleaning the ear after you pull the hair with alcohol or a commercial liquid ear cleaner? A hemostat is a really good idea if you can't reach the hair, but you need a really quiet, well behaved dog to do it. Otherwise, let the groomer use the hemostat. The other thing is that the hemostat must be meticulously cleaned before you use it and afterwards or you could just be forcing bacteria on the hemostat claws into your dog's ear.

And I know this sounds stupid, but are you washing your hands before you pull the hair out the right ear and then before you pull the hair out of the left ear and then afterwards?

I applaud you for doing this, it is very important for your dog's health, but doing it wrong can be almost as bad as not doing it at all.

 

tried the human trimmer....hubby found it too tickling to use