soft bump on dogs ear flap

Hi --I took our dogs to the vet when I found not only one but two of of our dogs had a soft lump on one of their ear lobes. The vet said it was a broken blood vessel caused by shaking of the head and may need an operation if they do not go down. Within a week and a half, the one has gone down...but the on the other feels like no change. Could you explain this problem to me and what are other alternatives are there to heal them. The vet checked inside the ears for foxtails or such also.

I've never experienced this but would also be interested in knowing more about it. My mom has a little guy that gets very energetic shaking his toys to death. :)

It is called an aural hematoma - it is caused by hard head shaking that causes a blood vessle to pop between the skin and cartilage that makes up the ear flap (pinna). The problem is then that the blood collects there and forces the skin away from the cartilage in this bubble, that if left untreated can cause a permenant disfigurement of the ear. The surgery to repair it involves making an incision to remove the blood clot and then tacking the skin with sutures down onto the cartilage again (Usually they will also put something else on like a bit of x-ray film or a button ect to keep the sutures from tearing though the soft skin of the ear.) It is a fairly simple proceedure but vital. Good luck with it - if you do a web search of aural hematoma you could probabally get more info on it too.