# Ear infections and grains



## Konnie Hein (Jun 14, 2006)

I've read some anecdotal information suggesting a relationship between feeding grains to dogs and ear infections. Does anybody have scientific (research-based) information on this? I did a google search and could only find opinions, not research.

Reason I'm asking is because we have a Labrador who had chronic ear infections until I started feeding him a grain-free raw diet. Prior to the raw diet, the ear infections sometimes occurred post-swimming, but not always. However, I just noticed he has an ear infection (and he hasn't been swimming at all this summer). I was thinking it might be related to the bread "heels" my husband has been feeding him lately (not my idea, BTW). He hasn't had much of the bread - maybe an entire piece per week over the past 2-3 weeks. Otherwise, I can't think of anything else that has changed.

I hate floppy-eared dog problems. None of my pointy-eared dogs ever had ear problems :x


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## Meena Moitra (Jul 11, 2008)

Look into the yeasts in the bread rather than the grains. But dogs can be allergic to wheat. My dogs are on a grain mix of oats, barley, and rye along w/raw and no ear infections for 8 years on my hound!
Good luck.


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## Elaine Matthys (May 18, 2008)

Allergies can cause ear infections. If you cut out whatever your dog is allergic to, he will get better and this could be to any food, meat or grain. If your dog doesn't have any grain allergies, cutting them out will have no affect. Wheat allergies are very common so it is possible that if your husband is feeding him bread and your dog has a wheat allergy, that could be a problem. It takes very little of an allergen to cause a flare up.


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## Kris Dow (Jun 15, 2008)

Elaine Matthys said:


> Allergies can cause ear infections. If you cut out whatever your dog is allergic to, he will get better and this could be to any food, meat or grain. If your dog doesn't have any grain allergies, cutting them out will have no affect. Wheat allergies are very common so it is possible that if your husband is feeding him bread and your dog has a wheat allergy, that could be a problem. It takes very little of an allergen to cause a flare up.


Any tips on figuring out the source of an allergy? I've noticed my newer dog seems to have quite itchy ears recently, and although they don't smell, they're pretty gross. (He's going to be seen by a vet to make sure it's nothing exciting.)

We have been switching foods a fair bit recently, trying to find something both dogs are happy with, but I'd like to figure out what he's allergic to if it is the result of an allergy, so I can avoid it in the future.  (He definitely seems sensitive to something in Science Diet- when we got him that's what he was on, and while I didn't notice ear problems, his skin was really flaky. Cleared up as soon as he switched to a better quality kibble. He may also have had ear problems at the time, but he wasn't on it for very long once he got to me, so I might just not have noticed it, or chalked it up to the skin thing.)

Or is it just a case of making note of what he was eating when the ear problem happened, and what's in it, and what's in new stuff, and seeing if any trends emerge?


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

The ear infection (to both posters who asked): Was it diagnosed as bacteria, yeast, or a combo?

If there is a yeast component, I would remove all grain/starch/sugar from the diet, of course. 

There's more than one potential allergy problem with grains (and there are other health problems with long-term daily grain-heavy foods, too). And as Elaine said, wheat is way up there (gluten). So are other gluten grains, like barley, rye, spelt, kamut, and triticale.

But I also think I'm reading a misconception, too, in a couple of the posts.

Allergies (true allergies) to food are by far the least common of the three biggies.

Inhalant-environmental allergies are FAR more frequent than food allergies. 

My first step would be to find out what was in the ear debris at the vet's office with a slide. Even if the odor is clearly a yeast odor, there is very likely to be a bacterial component that gained a toe-hold once the yeast breached the defenses.

I would also start a log. (Does the dog also have itchy paws, etc.?)


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Elaine Matthys said:


> Allergies can cause ear infections.


Absolutely correct.

And it does not have to be food allergies.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Konnie Hein said:


> I hate floppy-eared dog problems. None of my pointy-eared dogs ever had ear problems :x


GSDs as a breed are very prone to allergies and ear infections.

No escape via ear shape. :lol:


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## David Scholes (Jul 12, 2008)

I used to have a Rhodesian Ridgeback with allergies to grains and i suspect some airborne. Constant problems with ear infections and irritation between the toes. I was more than a little miffed with the breeder when they said I needed to feed lamb and rice and that there was allergy problems up the line with both parents. BARF helped some times of the year. I will never buy another dog if either parent has allergy problems. To me it ranks up there with HD. A dog should not have to be babied. JMO.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

David Scholes said:


> the breeder when they said I needed to feed lamb and rice.



I just want to point out that "lamb and rice" as an elimination diet is laughably ignorant.

I know that wasn't the point of the post, but babying or not, the time when lamb was a novel protein (and therefore an appropriate elimination diet) went by about three decades ago.


I couldn't agree more about not breeding allergic dogs.


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## Jennifer Coulter (Sep 18, 2007)

Konnie Hein said:


> I hate floppy-eared dog problems. None of my pointy-eared dogs ever had ear problems :x


I have a floppy eared dog with NO ear infections to date (fingers crossed).

That said two of the other search dogs I work with one lab x chessie and one golden have them bad (have used steroids).

Both are on grain free diets (one kibble one raw). The one who feeds raw has done an elimimination diet with nothing concrete.

It is my (strong) beleif that both of these dogs have seasonal allergies. Both dogs have HUGE improvements in the dead of winter for example.

Both dogs conditions improved on grain free diets , but were not eliminated by any means.

Sorry, no scientific data for you.


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## Konnie Hein (Jun 14, 2006)

Jennifer Coulter said:


> I have a floppy eared dog with NO ear infections to date (fingers crossed).
> 
> That said two of the other search dogs I work with one lab x chessie and one golden have them bad (have used steroids).
> 
> ...


Thanks for your input, Jennifer (and everybody else too). I'm going to keep track of when he has these flare-ups. I don't remember him having an ear issue last summer, but I'll keep track for sure this time around. Maybe it is a seasonal allergy. I can't imagine a few pieces of bread would cause trouble like this, but it just seemed to be a strange coincidence.

Darn Labradors. I'll stick with the Malinois.


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## Kristen Cabe (Mar 27, 2006)

I don't have official, scientific evidence, but I do have personal, first-hand experience with both family members' dogs that I've been successful in convincing to feed something better, and with foster dogs who have come to me with ear (and often skin) problems/infections that have cleared up as soon as they get off of the Dog Chow, Pedigree, or Science Diet crap that the rescue group usually has them on (not faulting them because they have to feed what they can afford to feed, but I've seen the outcome several times). 

My most memorable was a dog named Charlie, a dobie mix, that I fostered a few years ago. He was found as a stray, and developed a chronic ear infection after the rescue took him in. They had him for about 3 weeks before I offered to foster him and teach him some basic manners. They were feeding him Dog Chow, and when they brought him over to the house, they also brought a 50lb bag of the stuff to leave with me. I took it, but it remained unopened until he was adopted, at which point I gave it back to them. They also left me a big bottle of ear meds that I was supposed to put in his ears twice a day for the infection. He had been on these meds just about the entire duration that they had had him. I immediately put him on Wellness, and after a week, his ears were already starting to improve, and after 2 weeks, the infection was totally gone (as per the vet). 


I don't think that _all_ grains are equal when it comes to being possible causes of ear and skin issues. Of course, the glutens like wheat and barley are not well tolerated by many dogs, and corn is suspect in most cases, but grains like rice and oatmeal, and even millet, though I don't consider it something that necessarily should be in dog food, rarely, if ever cause a problem.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Yes, Kristen, what you have experienced is common. Yeast overgrowth happens with a breach in the defenses .... say, bacterial infection, or allergies (any allergies), an illness or certain meds, bad nutrition, antibiotics with no simultaneous probiotic, and so on.

_Malassezia_ infection needs treatment, but step number one for me is to get rid of grains and all other starch carbs in the diet, including grain-based training treats.

Besides not feeding the yeast the way grain-based foods do, the "bad nutrition" component of the initial trigger is also addressed by eliminating grain-based foods.

Sometimes, as Kristen has found, that one step does it, if that step is taken before the yeast overgrowth moves beyond superficial.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Kristen Cabe said:


> .. I don't think that _all_ grains are equal when it comes to being possible causes of ear and skin issues. Of course, the glutens like wheat and barley are not well tolerated by many dogs, and corn is suspect in most cases, but grains like rice and oatmeal, and even millet, though I don't consider it something that necessarily should be in dog food, rarely, if ever cause a problem.


Rice, oats, and and millet are not gluten grains. Gluten is indeed an allergy problem.

(Oats used to be thought of as a gluten grain, but it turned out that they were contaminated by processing with wheat, barley, etc. Now there are non-contaminated oats readily available.)

Still, aside from the gluten allergy problem, they will feed an already-active yeast overgrowth. 

They would be innocent, though, of triggering the common allergies that might have caused the overgrowth, and are probably no problem as a small part of a meat-based diet. 

Edit to add: I checked out corn today; couldn't remember if it was a gluten grain. It is.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Connie Sutherland said:


> If there is a yeast component, I would remove all grain/starch/sugar from the diet, of course.


Just as a point of clarification, since all kibble needs a binder to stick the meat together, I don't think it's possible to remove all grain and starch from a kibble diet. If you get rid of the grain, you have to use potatoes, sweet potatoes, tapioca (derived from cassava), etc, all which contain starch. I haven't heard of any well known holistic grain free kibble that doesn't use one of those three, but if anyone has heard, let me know.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> Just as a point of clarification, since all kibble needs a binder to stick the meat together, I don't think it's possible to remove all grain and starch from a kibble diet. If you get rid of the grain, you have to use potatoes, sweet potatoes, tapioca (derived from cassava), etc, all which contain starch. I haven't heard of any well known holistic grain free kibble that doesn't use one of those three, but if anyone has heard, let me know.


That's a good point that I overlooked, not being a kibble buyer.  (Pre-fresh, I used canned.)


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> ... I haven't heard of any well known holistic grain free kibble that doesn't use one of those three, but if anyone has heard, let me know.


Me too, please.


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## David Scholes (Jul 12, 2008)

I believe there is way to much grain in most kibble. That said, I'm not too hung up on there being some starch and sugars in the diet. Removing it for ear infections and allergies is probably smart.

I lived in Arizona for over 12 years and spent thousands of hours in the desert hunting, hiking etc. I've seen thousands of examples of coyote and fox scat and sometimes actual stomach contents. Certain times of the year these supposed "carnivores" eat almost exclusively mesquite beans, prickly pear cactus fruit, manzanita berries and even juniper berries. They also hang around pecan, citrus and other orchards, not just for the rodents and rabbits.

Oh, and as far as RMB "smelling fresh"? From what I've seen from some rancher's bone piles, where they drag their dead animals... the more ripe the better. I've also noticed the stomach & contents seems to be the first thing they go for.

I could be wrong but I suspect our dogs ancestors probably ate more than just clean raw meat and bones. I bring this up because of the terrible experience I had with a dog with allergies. There seems to be a common attitude in the dog world that it is easy to fix by changing the diet. Give them different medicines and ointments and cure the problem. Canines should be able to eat almost anything but need variety to be healthy.

I also wonder if part of the problem may be environmental and lack of exposure. Most of my family has had allergies. As a child I had a sore throat and runny nose almost continuously. Never took any medication or avoided any foods or the outdoors. Now I never have a problem. My kids and some other family seem to be so coddled and protected that they always have a problem. Could be just a coincidence. I wonder if a wildly varied diet and exposure to potential allergens would eventually help some dogs out grow the problem. Just my own anecdotal observations.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

David Scholes said:


> I also wonder if part of the problem may be environmental and lack of exposure. ..... I wonder if a wildly varied diet and exposure to potential allergens would eventually help some dogs out grow the problem. Just my own anecdotal observations.


Yes. Good observations. Hence my allergic (adopted) dog's hefty dose of probiotics in the form of live-culture plain yogurt every day.

I can't reinvent his immune system, but I can give some of the beneficial bugs that he probably missed when he was developing.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

David Scholes said:


> I lived in Arizona for over 12 years and spent thousands of hours in the desert hunting, hiking etc. I've seen thousands of examples of coyote and fox scat and sometimes actual stomach contents. Certain times of the year these supposed "carnivores" eat almost exclusively mesquite beans, prickly pear cactus fruit, manzanita berries and even juniper berries. They also hang around pecan, citrus and other orchards, not just for the rodents and rabbits. ... Oh, and as far as RMB "smelling fresh"? From what I've seen from some rancher's bone piles, where they drag their dead animals... the more ripe the better. I've also noticed the stomach & contents seems to be the first thing they go for. ... I could be wrong but I suspect our dogs ancestors probably ate more than just clean raw meat and bones.


I think that you are 100% correct on all counts. The UC Gray Wolf Project videos thinks that you are too, with video of gray wolves in plentiful-prey times eating small prey in its entirety (stomach and intestinal contents not being plucked out and discarded :lol: ) and scarfing up ripe berries and the tender young green ferns growing by streams.




David Scholes said:


> I bring this up because of the terrible experience I had with a dog with allergies. There seems to be a common attitude in the dog world that it is easy to fix by changing the diet. ..


Yes, there is, and it's wrong. 

All good points. JMO!


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

David Scholes said:


> Oh, and as far as RMB "smelling fresh"? From what I've seen from some rancher's bone piles, where they drag their dead animals... the more ripe the better. I've also noticed the stomach & contents seems to be the first thing they go for.


Since the GI tract is the first to "go bad" in the animal carcass because there is so much bacteria in there that causes post mortem gas and bloat, that's probably one reason they go after the guts and the vitamin rich organ meat like liver before they go for the muscle meat. Muscle meat will "keep" longer than the guts do. In pathology, you are limited pretty quickly by how long and at what temperature a dead carcass can be before it's totally unhelpful for diagnostics in the organs, so when in doubt, freezing is usually (not always) helpful. I'd imagine that somehow predators inherently "know" this (most all predators, not just wolves or dogs).

Interesting little tidbit...Dr. Sean Delaney (I mentioned him on the other board, president elect of the American College of Veterinary Nutrition, one of the heads of Natura, etc) said that your more natural/holistic foods that don't use by products are actually probably in need of more supplementation than your junky by-product foods because organ meat is typically vitamin rich. So people feeding *insert junky food here* with a lot of by products may be more of a potential risk of toxicity with vitamin supplementation (fat soluble, I assume). Very interesting point!


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