Dog with chronic ear infection and skin problems

Kim, seek the advice of another vet. Sounds like this one is doing nothing to get your dog feeling better. If you think it might be allergies, give your dog a benadryl everyday and see if you notice an improvement. If your dog is older it could become a chronic condition in which antibotics could be needed. One of my dogs when they got older had repeated infections that required antibiotic ear drops several times a year. Don't allow any kind of surgery until you have your dog seen by another vet and get their opinion. My vet never suggested surgery and the drops kept the infection at bay for months at a time. My dogs' vet prescribed Mometamax 15g and it really helped. Try EVERYTHING else before you even consider surgery, for your dog's sake.

As far as the lesions is your vet doing anything about them? Are they caused from scratching and dry skin or or they just appearing out of nowhere? Those need to be checked as well.

Do try the benadryl right away. All of these things could be allergy related, making your poor dog miserable. Give your pooch a pet for me and hope he gets to feeling better soon! 

This sounds like an allergy situation but you need to figure out what triggers the immune system to respond in this way.  The best way to do that is to start an elimination of possible triggers and keep a journal of possible things that have been eliminated and when and also note the results.  The best place to start is the food.  Switch your dog to a good lamb and rice dog food.  Lamb and rice food has a very low allergy potential (LAP).  Change the food over a period of a few days by adding the new food in 1/3 increments from the daily food ration and slowly removing the old food by 1/3 increments until you have completed the change over.  Do not feed any table scraps or dog treats of any kind so that you can see if the new food helps your dogs immune system and eliminates any or all of the allergy symproms.  This may take up to 6 months so you have to be diligent and not give in to your dogs begging eyes when he/she wants treats or table scraps.  If you give in then you will not know if the new food is helping or not because you won't know if it is the new dog food or the table scraps and treats that are the reason that the allergy symptoms remain.  Once you have established whether or not the allergy symptoms are a result of your dog's former food by eliminating it, then you can move on to other things if you see no difference from the new food.  Other triggers for allergy symptoms are, vaccinations (very high), plastic water and food bowls, grass and pollen, chemicals (both inhalant and contact) and several other things that may be found in your dog's environment.  Just keep eliminating things one at a time, keep the journal up to date, and don't add anything back once you have removed it until you find the main trigger for the allergy symptoms.  There could be more than one thing that is a trigger so you will have to work at one thing at a time until you can find some relief for your dog.

I would definitely get another opinion about your dog's allergy problems also.  It looks like your present vet has not done his best to help you and your dog and another opinion is needed here.

Hello, I recommend that you try inserting a few drops of Manuka and Tea Tree oil into your dogs ears daily. This formula contains 10% Manuka oil and 5% Tea Tree oil in a sweet almond oil base. This formula containing two natural essential oils in diluted form is antibacterial, and antifungal as well it will control any external parasites like mange or mites that could be the cause of these problems. available from  www.pet-products.co.nz