I am a Mini Lop, 5 lbs. 9 oz., diagnosed with ear infections in both ears at the beginning of January. The vet said they had probably been there for some time and gone unnoticed. I had no symptoms then and have never had any symptoms. First she gave us antibiotic eardrops, which we tried for a month, but they didn't work at all. Then she taught my mommy to give me bicillin injections, and she did that every evening for a couple of weeks, but then I went into stasis, so we stopped for a week and the vet said we should give the shots once every three days instead. I got checked a couple of times and the vet said it looked like it was getting better. At the end of May she said we should finish the course of antibiotic shots and come back in, and if it was gone we could stop the shots. So we went in yesterday, but she said it wasn't gone, and recommended the surgery. She said the infection hadn't changed since May.
Also, she cultured it and it came up as staph, but she said that was inconclusive because she could only culture the pus, and she thought pasteurella was likely to be present underneath the pus.
The infection went away in my left ear, although the ear canal is stenotic and she can't see down it. She would only operate on the right ear. She said my hearing is probably impaired, but I still have a blink reflex, which means the infection hasn't penetrated into the middle ear (I think).
The right ear is also stenotic and she can't see how far down the infection goes. She just sees pus.