let's talk about taping
ears!
so i've read about a lot of different ways to tape ears. i've also even heard of gluing with i think fabric glue or something... it seems kind of odd and the glue seems hard to find so i'm not even going to bother with it. what method do you guys recommend? does anyone have a good how to website? i'm a visual learner so if anyone knows of a website with pictures with the steps or a good video perhaps? unless you guys can be really descriptive with your steps!
i've seen some websites say just to use masking tape alone, and i've seen others say to cut up toilet paper rolls and put it in their ears with the tape or something? i don't know, the whole thing confuses me. there are so many "methods" but which one is the most effective and, well, the right method? and none of these sites say how long i have to tape their ears! or how many times a day. how long do i leave this on during the day? do i have to untape and apply fresh tape after so many hours? do i tape at night? is it ok to leave him alone while his ears are taped like say when i go to work? how do i tell when his ears are ready to stay up on their own?
i'm thinking i will have more questions once people start giving answers, so try to read some of my comments if i post any because they'll most likely be questions!
my new baby is coming saturday and i want to have all the supplies ready! he's 16 weeks old this week and the breeder said his ears are "starting" to come back up. apparently they were up when he was much younger then they fell again and have been down for a while. i don't want to risk him having floppy ears. not that there's anything wrong with floppy eared corgis! i just want mine to be perfect and pointy-eared =)
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ludi on
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http://www.phi-vestavia.com/EARTAPING.htm
I used this method with Ace, and he had very thick, heavy ear leather. It works, but you have to be patient. Ace finally had both erect at nearly 5 months old - so it was a long time for me to pray that he'd look "normal". You tape them for as long as you deem necessary - every ear is different, even on the same dog. When you think it looks "right", take off the tape and check. If it folds down, well, you have your answer. If it stays up but wilts back down throughout the day, put it back up. If it stays up for 24 hours, you should be in the clear.
Leave him taped 24 hours a day when he does need it. You can leave him alone with the tape on provided that he doesn't manage to wrestle it off on his own. Make sure that stuff stays on!
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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Pem or Cardi? Pems have shorter ears and the leather is not as heavy. Pems are easy; two passes of masking tape at the base of each ear, no need for elaborate cross-bars.
Cardis need more elaborate taping.
Leave it on 24/7 or until he scratches it off. Leave each batch on for about 2 days and then check them to see if up on their own. If not, leave it off a short time to breathe and re-tape. Most Pems don't need much taping.
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Permalink Reply by Kaley and Ravioli on
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oh yes, i guess i should've added that. he's a pem
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Permalink Reply by Chris, Kadi & Brodie on
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Most Pems ears will come up and stay on their own and don't need taping. Ask your breeder if it is needed. The research I did prior to my pup said the ears come up, then fall often when they stop nursing because of the lack of calcium intake, then they will come up again on their own. They suggested yogurt to help them come back up. When we got Kadi at 8 weeks, hers were up and never fell.
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i'm just concerned because he'll be 4 months next week and they haven't come back up yet. she said they went down around 2-2 1/2 months. so they've been down quite a while and haven't come back up yet...
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Relax. :) Pems have their ears go up really easily; Ace is a Cardigan and his ears were completely folded over for almost 5 months. In the end, healthy dollops of yogurt and vigilant taping did the trick.
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Permalink Reply by Jane on
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I personally agree with taping them at that age. The longer they stay down the harder it will probably be to get them up again.
This is the method I used with Luke, but I used 1.5" masking tape for everything. A couple of loops around each ear, and then the little bridge in the middle if they need the support. Leave it on for 2-3 days or until he manages to get it off, lol.
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I agree that at 16 weeks, I would definitely be taping.
If you look at the link that Jane provided, we were able to get Jack's to stand up with just the first step (the two passes of blue tape in the pictures) without doing the bonnet/ cross-taping part at all.
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Permalink Reply by Anna Morelli on
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Since the post says "Let's talk about taping", I want to point out that ears up or down are a genetic trait. Yes you can tape a dog with weak ears, whose ears should naturally be upright, according to breed standard and get them to ultimately stand. This practice is fine when you have a pet, but the real problem is when breeders tape ears, because this perpetuates the problem into the line and the breed. Ears down are a recessive trait, ears up a dominant trait. Breeds with ears down (pure recessives) NEVER have ears come up. If dogs were allowed to develop with whatever natural ear type they had, breeders would easily select from those with natural upright ears and the incidence of ears needed to be taped would decrease more and more as those dogs would not be bred or shown. Because this practice is not followed by breeders, weak ears are the bane of many breeds. Just for the record.... In a dog with naturally strong ears, ears that come down at teething, will stand on their own again, but the going down is in itself a sign of weaker muscles, not of malnutrition. To see this, just look at how many dogs there are who have been dumped in shelters as pups and not had the benefit of good rearing or nutrition, but have upright ears simply because that's their genetic type.
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I'm glad you said that Anna. I was wondering if I was the only one thinking it. Generally speaking the corgis in my neck of the woods don't ever need taping and I think it's because of that reason exactly.
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Anna, do you have any studies on that? The reason I ask is Corgi ears are quite huge and when the dog is a puppy, the weight of the ear in proportion to the rest of the dog is big. Like people, different body parts grow at different times and the ears are disproportionately big in some puppies. I've seen adults with very similar ears who had big ears that flopped as puppies, and small ears that were upright as puppies.
Jack had one come up and one stay down as a pup so we taped his, because I didn't want to chance it. But the Corgi pups I've seen with upright ears at a young age also had small ears at a young age; as adults they have the same size ears as Corgis who had big ears as pups, and the big ones stay down.
If it IS genetic there are probably so many genes involved that impact WHEN the ears grow in relation to the rest of the head that it would be impossible to breed towards the natural prick ears. Jack was growthy and gawky (like many human children), yet there are other dogs who keep adult proportions throughout most of their adolescence. Maddie was such a growthy awkward pup (with floppy ears) that she was not shown til she was 2. Her littermate brother was best pup at the National Specialty.
I'm just not sure how you breed towards "ears grow in proportion to head." In the same litter you will see pups with very different ears at a young age.
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By the way, we taped for a total of about 4 days, so I'm fairly sure they would have come up on their own. But take the same pup with hot, humid weather and he might wilt while if the weather were cooler he'd have upright ears. There is SO much that goes into it. I'm reluctant to put this one at the breeders' feet, except of course for the tendency to favor huge fox ears.
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