I had a very similar problem with my dog. She had problems with allergies due to food. She scrathed and with some canine food she had ear infections. The vet also suggested me HILLS HYPRO ALLERGO and me too didn´t saw any results. Then I switched to self made food (rise, fish, kidnes or liver, garlic, carrots etc.) and the itching and ear problems resolved.
Now making food yourself is tons of work, so I looked for an alternative. I tried already all brands form Hills, Eukanuba, Bento plus tons of others. Then I found that NUTRO showed some results and ear infections stopped but there was still some itching but the red dots on her stomach where gone. So I gave her Nutro for a while till I found a food based on salmon and without conservation stuff (conservation are based on vitamines). Henne Pet Food which has tons of Omega 3 and omega 6 acids and based on fish no meat or chicken meal. I must say now all alergies are gone. And a couple of weeks ago I received a bag of Pural Plan dog food or something like that due to a price. So I gave this food without thinking it would hurt (it was a small bag) and after a couple of days she started back with itching which stopped again luckely.
Was this allergy due to the conservation product or the meat or chicken meal I´m not 100% sure. But I know that major dog food companies use the same chicken meal or meat meal and conservatives. Because there are only a handfull companies who produce chicken meal or meat meal.

http://www.kringgroepantwerpen.tk

If you want to stay on a dry food, but not chicken based, Wellness by Old Mother Hubbard makes a fish and sweet potato and a lamb and sweet potato formula. It's all human grade ingredients. You can supplement with other fresh or cooked foods of your own if you want. Here's the link
http://www.oldmotherhubbard.com/dogs/wellness_overview.html

does anyone have a recipe on how to clean the dog's ears and what to use?
A bit of track considering allergies... I use 1/3 tea tree oil and 2/3 mineral oil for cleaning ears, works great for me. But I do not think you should use this in case of allergy.

One of my males suffered from allergies, coat was coarse. AFter purina, eukanuba, nutro, etc. Put him on canidae with supplements for his coat, no more ear infections or chewing his paws bloody. For normal cleaning (no cuts, or scratches in ears) I use 1/2 white vinegar to 1/2 alcohol. I used to have to flush/clean his ears out 3-4x a year, now maybe once a year if that. I just wipe the outside of the canal off now. He did pretty well on raw as well, just gets to be too much with 5 dogs to feed.

To answer the original question, I think you were referring to the Blue Powder ear solution. the link is http://www.itsfortheanimals.com/BLUE.HTM

not sure why the link isn't working, let me try again.

http://www.itsfortheanimals.com/BLUE.HTM

Cindy,
When I told my vet that I was feeding BARF, he said "Hey, it can't hurt.", and wanted to see how it worked out over the long run.

Anyway,
as110, Ed recommends the 50/50 mix of white vinegar and alcohol. Here's a link for "Purple Power". It's on a Lab site, but I think you could use it on your dog too. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

http://www.woodhavenlabs.com/ears.html

Thanks for all the responses. I am not going to keep him on dry food. Back home my mom used to cook meat for the dogs, we never knew commercial dry foods existed and the dogs were doing great. I do not remember seeing any dog with ailments like I see them here. They never had diarrhea or ear problems, nothing. I will switch him to natural, I do not mind preparing, we have a huge fridge.

The last question is if I want to switch how fast can I do it? I read and hear everywhere that it should be gradual, but if the current food is so unhealthy for him I am tempted to go half cold turkey within a week, perhaps I can use 50-50% of both and eventually cut off the dry food. Is this the proper way to do it? I do not want diarrhea, not that his poop is very much better now on dry food.

I went cold turkey, and it worked fine for my dogs.

Hello As110,
Feeling sympathy for your cocker (I have a working Springer Spaniel) I will also advise you on the Wellness food by Old Mother Hubbard, as per my sisters recommendation. She has a mix breed that has had a skin condition for as long as I can remember. The poor dog's skin was literally black and would also often crack and bleed (and stink!) She went to a number of vets and tried every conventional treatment possible. She tried the Wellness food and the condition cleared up amazingly! (Of course the raw diets are the best, just avoid brewers yeast!) As far as the ear cleaning, try an ear cream for yeast. When all our Springers were shipped from the cool U.K. to our warm climates, they all got the yeast infections in their ears. I also clean his ears 2X a week with a solution called AloCetic, by DVM Pharmaceuticals. It is great stuff and non-irritating (made from Acetic Acid and Aloe Vera.)(We are in the water a lot, hence the 2X a week). Good Luck.

I ran out of the earwash my vet gave me, so I mixed up a batch of Ed's vinegar/alcohol stuff. WOW! I have never seen so much crud come out of those ears (with the exception of the time the vet had him knocked out for an xray, and took advantage of the situation to do some really deep cleaning on the ears).