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Taping Ears


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I used the glue to tape shaped cut outs made from those Scholls foam shoe insoles, then sports tape to make sure she cant scratch an edge up ..

eh VOILA! Perfect Malinois ears! fingers crossed they stay that way when I eventually stop, but I think a month or two of it will help

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That looks like a good job.

Does the sports tape go right across the back of the ear, from one side to the other, or just fold around the edge?

Keep us posted on the outcome. I am interested to see how it goes.

Julie

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Aww, am I the only one who wants to draw a smiley face on the inserts? :)

Be interesting to see what the ears are like when they inserts are removed - how long are you going to leave these on before taking them off for a look see?

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the tape is folded around the edges of the ears and a strip along the back at the base of the ear. DIdnt want to cover the whole ear to let the skin breathe at least at the back.

I'm going to leave them on for a month, see how strong they are and probably another month or two after that depending how well they stay up. She has knuckles the size of a dane pup so at least she definately has a lot of growing to do, and hope that growing swings in my favour with the ears.

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  • 4 months later...

It was a fail. The bases became a little firmer and more open at least which has helped a lot with her hearing. When she works a lot one ear just pops up most of the way but she's going to be flopper for life. Ahh well she was never going in the show ring anyway :p

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RiverStar-Aura, in breeds that have large erect ears (german shepherds, belgian shepherds, kelpies, corgis etc) you can get dogs with weak ear leather, floppy ears, soft ears, whatever you want to call it. My understanding is that soft ears runs in certain lines of dogs. Usually the ears go up on their own when the dog is a young puppy (and then go crazy during teething) but sometimes they need a bit of help, whether it be by ear massaging, taping, gluing etc.

I don't really care that my older corgi boy has a floppy ear but I tried very hard to get my other boy's ears up as he is a longcoat and has very fluffy ears. Fluffy + floppy = ear infections and as he had his first infection at just 12 weeks old, I wanted to prevent him getting any more. With a lot of help I managed to get his ears up (and he hasn't had any infections) but they aren't strong like my other dogs' and if he gets wet, they get weighed down and droop :laugh:

Nekhbet, what a pity it didn't work! Can we have a photo of the pretty girl? You know, for educational purposes :provoke:

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I did it simply because they were not flopped foreward, they were actually flopped to the sides which was blocking her ability to hear properly, especially since the bases were weak too. I also wanted to make sure she had air flow getting in there to prevent rubbish being stuck in there.

Ya purely for educational purposes :laugh: she will be 12 months old next month

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Can I just ask the point of taping ears? If the breed is supposed to have sticky-uppy ears, doesn't this just happen naturally with age?

Is it done just on show dogs? It just seems like an odd practice for someone like me who has little to no understanding of breeding/showing :o

I've got to admit I was wondering the same! It seems really strange to me and almost a little cruel.. but it would be better than ending up with lots of ear infections later down the track.

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ear set for quite a few breeds has signifigance. I mean quite a few people dont really care if the ear flops a little or dont sit perfectly but you can sometimes notice the difference. I minute I taped Rogue's up her eyes widened and she kept flinching to small noises she couldnt pinpoint previously.

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I bet it alters people's perception of her and they don't consider her anywhere near as threatening with floppy ears as they would if she had pointy ears.

She has a cutey face anyway :p the low growl emitting tends to let people know she's not a teddy though :laugh: yes that is Pugsley, he was her little brother for the weekend. She was totally in love with him despite the fact he pinched all her toys

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