cleaning ears?

My vet recommends putting a little baby oil (mineral oil) on a cotton ball and rolling it between your hands until it's longer and thinner. Then you stick it in the ear with your finger to wipe it out. That way there's no pointy parts like on a q-tip to hurt the dog.

The best way that's worked for me was shown to me by my vet.  You take several cotton balls (or I use those round makeup remover pads - but my labs ears are big).  Saturate them with whatever cleaning solution your using - I use Oti Calm or Oti-Rinse, but there are others.  Put a saturated one in each ear and then massage the ears.  You should be able to hear "squish, squish..."  I do that for 30-60 seconds, depending on how patient my dog is.  Always talk sweet things when you're doing it, so it's as pleasant as possible.  I then let go and she always shakes her head and the pads or cotton fly out.  I then take dry pads and wipe out the parts I can easily reach.  If there infected or dirty, you may want to use a few dry ones to get all the gunk out.  You also may need to do this daily for a few days,  if it's really bad.  Most ear cleaners have a drying agent in them, so there's no concern about leaving the ear wet afterwards.

You can't effectively clean the ears without getting them "wet".  It's not good to get water in them when you give the dog a bath, but it IS okay to fill them up with ear cleaning solution and like the previous post says, you want to hear that squishy noise while you're massaging the base of the ear.  Ear cleaners are designed to dry very quickly, and when the dog shakes his head to get all the liquid cleaner out, all the gunk and ear debris comes out along with it, leaving clean (and soon dry) ears behind.

a very well known breeder of standard poodles once told me to mix a solution of 1/2 white vinegar and 1/2 rubbing alchol..  put a little in each ear once a week to maintain ear health. 

When i clean my dogs ears i use mineral oil or hydrogen peroxide on a cotton ball.....but make sure you dont scope to far into the ear or it could damage it...to help from the oil running into the ear try putting a piece of cotton ball into it.

The problem with putting anything smaller than your elbow into the ear (sounds weird but it's true) is that you may shove debris FURTHER into the ear.
 
You don't want to use one of the 'blue' cleaners that have chlorhexiderm in them more than once a month -- that can go thru the ear drum if there is infection present (and you may not know that) and cause problems like deafness.
 
Depending on what color your dog is, I like the Blue Power Ear Solution from the old AOL cocker board.  It's got gentian violet in it (a good anti-fungal, but VERY purple), alcohol (great disinfectant and anti-bacterial, and boric acid (a soother for itchy ears). 
 
But it IS very purple -- your white or buffy coated dog will kinda look like a teenager with dyed hair (which everyone thinks is cute on my buffy coated cocker and I really don't care how purple it is, it works!).
 
I've got the recipe and will be happy to pass it on to anyone, but honestly I'd rather you'd go to one of the MANY different websites that talk about it -- they tell how to do it and how to maintain it.  Great for yeasty/infected ears.
 
Go to a good search engine and copy and paste in the following:
 
"Blue Power Ear Solution" dog
 
Amazingly you'll get a ton of hits and they'll ALL give you the same recipe.  Good stuff and cheap.