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Permalink Reply by Erin & Ruckus on December 13, 2010 at 7:46pm

Hi Laura

I'm new to all this myself, but I can at least offer an educated guess as to what's up.  Ruckus' ears took way longer to pop compared to his litter mates so I became a worried mom and did a lot of research to see if I should be concerned or if there was anything I could do.  When they're growing the ears, teeth, and bones are all competing for calcium so the cartilage in the ears sometimes get shortchanged, resulting in the floppy ears.  It makes sense since your little guy is getting in new teeth that the ears might be robbed of calcium again.  I can't imagine you're the only dog owner to have this happen.

What I did for Ruckus was give him extra calcium (a small scoop of fat free cottage cheese in his food, which he LOVED) and massaged his ears.  People online recommended laying the dog in your lap on his back (so the ears are sort of "standing up" while upside down) and rub them starting at the head and moving towards the tip.  Ruckus loved that too and fell asleep in my lap every time I did it.  I suppose I can't be sure if my interventions helped at all or if they stood up just due to time, but either way the dog liked it and it didn't hurt. :)

If you're worried you should contact your breeder and get advice form him/her.  They've probably seen it all.  See if you should be concerned and when, if at all, you should try taping the ear.  Although I think the one ear up, one ear down thing is absolutely adorable! 

Good luck