Slow recovery with good and bad news

When I wrote last week how Susu, my old lady, fell down the stairs because her dirty ears caused her to lose her sense of balance, some readers immediately checked the ears of their own pets and discovered that their dogs and cats were suffering from the same problem.

“I thought that my dog was stumbling around because she was old,” one reader e-mailed me. “Then I cleaned her ears, and - surprise! – she’s back to her old self.”

Although I’m not a vet and not an expert, I'm thrilled that I can help an owner and his suffering pet.

Perhaps I should add that not only senior pets need their ears cleaned regularly. Dogs with long, floppy ears like cocker spaniels, or with ears that are slightly closed by ear flaps or wrinkles or with ears with long hairs inside, need to have a regular ear-cleaning.

Cats with long hair like Persians should have their ears cleaned regularly too.

In addition, some animals have naturally dirty ears. My poodle pup Wan-Wan never needs to have her ears cleaned, but my boy Pan-Pan needs a monthly cleaning. The cat doesn’t have ear mites, thank goodness, just ears that seem to attract dirt.

When you clean your pet’s ears, use a cotton pad wrapped around your finger. Cotton buds can loosen inside your pet’s ear and the wooden pick can injure the ear. Also, don’t use water, which can dry out the ear. You can use a special cleaning liquid especially for dogs and cats. If you don’t have this liquid, just use the dry pad.

It turns out that Susu has more problems than dirty ears. Cleaning them regularly has helped a lot, but she’s still suffering. It’s common sense, isn’t it, that if you fall down the stairs, your whole body is going to hurt for awhile.

So it is with my old lady, and since she’s so old, she doesn’t recover as quickly as a younger cat would.

For a few days, she has difficulties standing up and walking. I must place her near her food bowl, but although she feels pain when I lift her up, she still finishes her entire meal.

Just yesterday, she began standing up on her own and walking. Her colourful cat language full of feline swear words has returned too.

It’s good news. There’s bad news, though. She’s walking to the stairs again.

Has she forgotten what happened the last time she encountered the stairs? Or does she simply refuse to accept the limitations of old age?