My puppy has scabs in his ear folds. How do I treat and prevent them?

This appears to be some sort of topical dermatitis. It can be caused by an underlying allergy, a bacterial infection or a fungal infection. You will most likely need to put a topical medication on the sores to help them clear up. You can try some triple antibiotic ointment at home and see if that helps. If not, you will need to take Chico to see your veterinarian. I hope this helps. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. Best of luck.

If you have noticed Max scratching excessively at the ear that has the scab on it he may have an underlying ear infection. If you look inside his ear and it is red, inflammed or has any odor or discharge he likely has an infection and will need to see your vet so some ear medication can be prescribed. If the inside of the ear looks clean and normal he probably just accidentally injured the outside of his ear. If this is the case I'd recommend continuing the Vaseline or putting some Neosporin on the scab until it heals.

Ouch! If you haven't already, your may want to have a biopsy done of the scab or the affected area and then sent to a lab. This can help determine what is going on with the cells there (whether its abnormal or just poor healing) and can also be checked for bacteria, yeast, etc that may be slowing healing and need treatment.

A buster collar would be very helpful to avoid any scratching and in the meantime skin ear can be washed and disinfected twice daily with some diluted hibiscrub solution or some diluted betadine or some salted water. A picture of the lesions can be quite helpful to understand the severity of the injuries.

Hi, and thanks for your question. This is probably due to an allergy, although it could also be infection or mites. First of all, in order to rule out skin parasites, you will need to treat with a high quality flea treatment, then ask the vet to perform a skin scrape - this might reveal an infection or a mite infestation. If all of those came back negative, the next step is to treat the allergy symptomatically and try to discover the cause of the allergy. Three main type of allergies are usually affecting pets: food allergies, flea and parasite related ones and environmental type (allergens coming from trees, pollens, dust etc etc). Some medications can be given by the vet in order to repair any possible skin lesions (like steroids and antibiotics). Hope this answer was helpful, but please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further. Please find the time to give us a feedback about the consultation as that will be used to improve our service.

I would recommend doing testing on the ears to find out what is causing the scabs. If your pet is outside a lot, then flea bites are possible and it is recommended to purchase flea bite repellent at your local pet store to start, followed by topical triple antibiotic to get the scabs to heal. If your pet is kept mostly indoors, two common causes of this are demodexx mites or a yeast infection. Also another condition called ear margin vasculitis could be the cause. Ear margin vasculitis is a spontaneous condition where the vessels at the ear tip margin become inflamed creating a scabby appearance to the skin. Since all 3 of these look very similar it is important to get testing done in the form of a skin scrape/cytology and/or skin biopsy because each is treated so differently and it takes out a lot of the guess-work. Therefore scheduling an appointment with your vet is needed for proper diagnosis and treatment.

This presentation is due to a skin infection, possibly caused by bacteria. A veterinary consultation is needed in these cases as antibiotics will be quickly resolving this problem. Disinfection may be started at home with very diluted hibiscrub or betadine or salted water baths. Buster collar may be useful as well to avoid any licking/scratching (if any). Hope this answer was helpful, but please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further. If this answer was helpful please let us know, this will be used to improve our service!