Her history changes the rules
For a dog who has never had ear trouble, cleaning is casual grooming. For yours, it is part of a medical management plan, and the difference matters. Ears that have been infected before often have narrower, more easily irritated canals, a tendency to produce excess wax or moisture, or an underlying sensitivity that keeps inviting infection back. Your vet chose her cleaning solution and schedule with her specific ears in mind — perhaps a drying cleaner to discourage yeast-friendly damp, perhaps a gentle one because her canal lining is reactive — and improvising with a different product, a homemade mixture or a neighbour's recommendation can undo that reasoning in one well-meant session.
The cleaning sequence, done the prescribed way
Set up somewhere she is relaxed and the floor can take a shake: solution, cotton wool or gauze, treats, and good light. Lift the ear flap and look and sniff before you start — a healthy maintenance clean starts from a calm ear, while redness, a yeasty or sour smell, dark discharge or pain when you touch the ear means stop and call the vet instead, because cleaning an actively infected ear at home can hurt her and spread the problem deeper.
If the ear looks as expected, fill the canal with the prescribed solution until it brims, as your vet demonstrated, then massage the firm cartilage at the base of the ear for twenty to thirty seconds — the squelching sound tells you solution is coating the vertical canal where wax gathers. Release and step back: her shake throws loosened debris up and out, which is the mechanism doing the real work. Wipe the folds you can see with cotton wool wrapped around your finger, working only as deep as your fingertip fits. Repeat on the other ear if her plan includes it, and finish with the treat that makes the whole procedure forecastable and mild in her mind.
What never goes in those ears
Nothing rigid or narrow goes down the canal — no cotton buds, no tweezers, no hemostats with cotton, however satisfying the extracted gunk looks in videos. The canine ear canal bends sharply, and probing past the bend risks packing debris against the eardrum or rupturing an eardrum already weakened by past infection. Equally, keep water out of her ears at bath time and after swimming unless her vet has specifically built rinsing into her plan; trapped water is a classic trigger for the next infection in a susceptible dog.
Timing, frequency and the pattern diary
Do her cleans on the vet's interval, not on how dirty the ears look from outside; over-cleaning irritates canals and can cause the very inflammation you are preventing, while skipped weeks let wax and moisture rebuild unnoticed. Note each clean with a line about what came out — colour, amount, smell — and any head shaking, scratching or ear-tip chewing between sessions.
When cleaning stops and the vet starts
Contact your vet promptly if she shakes her head persistently, holds her head tilted, cries when the ear is touched or her jaw moves, if discharge turns thick, bloody or strongly smelling, or if the ear flap swells. A dog with her record should be seen earlier in a flare than a first-time dog, and cleaning should pause until the clinic says otherwise — solution in an ear with a possibly damaged eardrum is a decision only they should make.
Storing the prescribed solution, interval and flare signs in KinsLe Pet Passport puts her ear routine in the same records packet as the infection history behind it, so a sitter or a new clinic sees the vet's exact instructions rather than a summary.