Hi! I am Dr. Lauren from petside.com. It's really important that you make sure to keep dog's ears clean. This will help to prevent ear infections. Dogs like Stella that have long ears that hang are more prone to get an ear infection. Also, dogs that have long hair or a lot of hair in their ear canal are more prone to get an ear infection. This is why it's so important to keep their ears clean.

So before you get started cleaning your dog's ears, there are a couple things that you want to make sure that you have. It's really important to remember not to use cue tips in your pets because this could actually really hurt them. I prefer to use a piece of gauze and just wrap it around the tip of my finger.

Then, you want to make sure that you have a good ear cleaner. Your local veterinarian should carry a cleaner that's safe and effective.

So what you want to do is take the piece of gauze and wrap it around the tip of your finger. Then you soak the gauze with ear cleaner, gently lift your pet's ear exposing the ear canal. You rub inside the pet's ear and you don't have to be worried that you're going to hurt them. Make sure you've got both ears.

Remember that if your dog has a lot of hair in the ear canal, see if your groomer can try and keep that nice and short for you. With dogs like Stella that have long ears, you'll probably want to keep their ears clean about once a week.

I am Dr. Lauren from petside.com, if you have any questions about taking care of your pets, feel free to email me at DrLauren@petside.com.