About a month and a half ago my Labrador, Winnie was laying on the kitchen floor asleep. She woke up sneezing 3-4 times in a row which is nothing unusual. However, because she was still laying down on the hardwood floor, she repeatedly hit her head on the floor as she sneezed (it was too many sneezes in too short of time for her to "get up"). Once the sneezing stopped she stood up and I noticed her left ear (the part hanging down) looked as though someone stuck a tube in it and blew it up like a balloon!
I have NEVER in all the years of owning dogs come across something like this and it scared me to death. Not just the fact that I was afraid she was in pain but what if it was some sort of blood clot that would travel straight to her brain and kill her instantly!!??? Okay, I get a little freaked over my animals when something is wrong. I'm sure that I am not preaching to the choir on that one. So upon extensive research I came across many pet owners and pet health sites that discussed this phenom.
First and foremost you need to be sure there is not an ear infection that is causing this. Since I witnessed the actual injury and know my dog very well in terms of her ear infections, I was certain that was not the case. If it's the same situation for your dog I would suggest going the route that I took. After reading the unsatisfactory results and complications that run as high as 90% in the surgery performed to "drain" the ear, I decided to try the "wait and see" method. Many pet owners had done the same with great results. I did see a few posts that described some of the ears were a little "wrinkly" at the end but I think over time that will be normal as well.
So here we are today and the fluid has finally drained/absorbed itself back into her body (that's what hematoma's do) to unveil her old ear. She was never in pain, she was not going to require surgery that may or may not have actually made the situation worse and I didn't have to worry about taping her ears on top of her head and embarrassing her to the other animals!
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