Q&A for How to Treat Aural Hematomas in Dogs

To get rid of the blood within the ear requires a vet to either drain the blood away or intervene with surgery. Sadly, there is no effective home remedy. Also, an ear infection can be the underlying reason the hematoma developed in the first case, so a vet needs to check if medical treatment is needed for this.

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The most successful outcome is with surgery under anesthesia. The vet makes an incision on the underside of the ear flap to drain the blood out, and then the flap is compressed using lots of sutures. Alternatively, small hematomas can respond to needle drainage with steroid injected into the resulting cavity. However, this procedure can need to be repeated, and doesn't always work.

My suspicion is that the swollen ear flap throbs and is tender, rather than been outright painful. Often there's also an infection in the ear canal (the reason the dog scratched and damaged the ear flap in the first case) which is uncomfortable and irritates the dog.

An aural hematoma will resolve on its own, but result in the dog equivalent of a cauliflower ear. The ear flap will be distorted and crinkled. For some dogs, this wrinkling is so severe that it reduces air flow into the ear canal and can make the dog predisposed to ear infections.