[Germandogs101]

I'm attaching pictures of my 6 month old german shepherd with soft ears. He's getting high quality food, vitamins high in glucose and also beef gelatin. He finished teething a couple weeks ago so I'm wondering if I should try tapping or gluing now? From the time he was 3.5-4.5 months his ears were up just fine but we visited my mom and her dog was messing with his ears and they haven't stayed up correctly since. The other thing is the ears are almost fully erect other than the tips. The second pic is of him looking upwards which makes them stand. Is there still hope that they may eventually go up?

 

[Sunsilver]

The ear leathers on your dog look to be unusually thick and heavy. I would suggest two things: 1) remove the hair from the inside of the ears to make them lighter, and 2) have a vet check the ears to see if the other dog did damage to them. Something doesn't look quite right about the tips - they look a bit swollen. If there is blood or fluid in the ears because they were bitten, the vet MAY be able to drain it, which may let them stand.

One of the easiest things to do to brace ears is to put Breathe Right nasal strips in them. A friend of mine did this successfully with her male, when one of his ears was really slow to stand. He was over a year old and it still wasn't up. Usually by that age, you can forget about making ears stand, but this time it worked!

The strips are so light weight that many dogs aren't bothered by them, whereas a full out bracing and taping job with foam drives some of them nuts, and they won't stop scratching at the ears until they've gotten rid of the bracing.

As a rule of thumb, if your dog's ears have been up once, they WILL come up again! My puppy had heer ears up at 12 weeks when I brought her home, but they fell down within a week. They did not come up to stay until she was about 9 months old.

 

[Findlay]

A Very handsome pup.