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A friend of mine has a kitten with dirty ears. The kitty keeps shaking his head and scratching. When I was young, we used to mix up a home remedy to clean our cats' ears. Ingredients included some type of vegetable oil and a few other things. Do you have this recipe?

Marianne

Dear Marianne,

Even if I had the recipe, I would never pass it on because your friend's kitten needs to be seen by a veterinarian to discover exactly what's going on in there.

It could be a bacterial infection, yeast infection, allergy, ear mites or any number of problems, all of which require different treatments and only a veterinarian can identify the cause and prescribe the correct treatment.

Please ask your friend to take kitty to a vet as soon as possible as any of these problems can lead to serious infections and the real potential of loss of hearing. Not to mention how uncomfortable it is for anybody - human or animal - to live with itchy and irritated ears.

Generally, a healthy cat with healthy ears will have a small amount of wax (light brown in colour) in the ear canal, but if you see any other discharge that appears as red, black, dark brown, yellow or green (indicating infection), resist the urge to excavate with a Q-tip. To do so may rupture the ear drum or pack debris further into the ear canal.

And please don't treat with over-the-counter medications meant for people or animals.

Until your vet gives a diagnosis, you may be doing more harm than good.

Your friend will most likely be given some kind of eardrop to be administered at home for a specified period of time. It's likely the condition will appear to be gone within the first few days but the drops shouldn't be stopped until the full course has been completed and kitty is re-checked by the veterinarian.

I know many pets that suffer recurring ear infections because their owners discontinued treatment when the pet's ears looked healthy again. The vet re-check includes a physical exam and possible look-see under a microscope to confirm that the eardrops have worked as expected.

A cat's ears are truly a wonder of nature.

According to Eric Christensen, a veterinarian with Cornell Feline Health Centre, "Cats are capable of hearing a very high pitch of high-frequency sounds that you and I can't detect. The classic example of that would be noises from kittens or noises that a prey species like a mouse or another small mammal might make. Cats also have the ability to localize sounds - they can hear and differentiate sounds three feet away whose sources are only three inches apart."

It's believed that a human can hear frequencies from about 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz while cats pick up sounds at 30 to 60. Since a cat's hearing is so astute, experts warn that they shouldn't be exposed to loud or high-pitched noises such as sirens, power tools, loud music or any other sound that causes your cat to run for cover."

I hope your friend takes my advice and makes an appointment with a veterinarian sooner rather than later. Many ear problems are common and can be dealt with quickly and easily but if left unattended may cause severe injury necessitating surgery or resulting in hearing loss.

Last, but not least, all that obsessive scratching around the head can cause secondary skin infections. As usual, this is another case of, "Pay now or pay later" - if finances are an issue, it's much less expensive to treat this problem in its beginning stages.

E-mail jacque-newman@rogers.com with a question, comment or suggestion.