Hiya, we have a KC reg 14 week old doberman puppy with natural ears and a natural tail of course. I am a bit concerned about her ears which although not cropped stand erect most of the time. We would love to show her eventually but i am worried that her ears wont drop and fold naturally to adhere to the breed standard. We had visited her from 2 weeks and up until about 10 weeks her ears were floppy and dropped. Its only between 10 and 14 weeks that her ears have started to become erect. She holds them folded onto the top of her head most of the time but sometimes one stands nearly fully erect and she looks crazy!!!

Does anyone know whether this is normal and whether they will start to drop naturally? Our vet said that there was a possibility that there was some muscle tightening in her head that was pulling her ears up and inwards? I thought it might just be because her ears are still quite small so she is able to hold them up without any trouble? Some body also mentioned that high calcium diets can often strengthen ear cartilage so that the ears can be held erect easily?

Can anybody shed any light?

The standard says 'naturally dropped but maybe erect' but I do agree that I haven't see Dobes with erect ears do very well in the ring.
Ears do funny things when pups are teething.  Does she have show winning parents and ancestors?  If so your breeder maybe able to tell you what they do to encourage them down. ;)

I don't know much about the breed, hopefully somebody who does will come along, but I have seen several adult pet Dobermanns that have ears on top of their head crossed looking rather odd. What does the breeder say, surely they should know? I mean I know how ears can change in my breed as pups, it can even depend on the weather, so anybody breeding Dobermanns should have similar knowledge about their breed -so probably best person to ask. :)

As Westcoast says it may be due to teething. My Lottie has a very good ear carriage but as a youngster her ears were all over the place, one more than the other often stood practically erect. Once the teething phase had passed her ears were fine. My first Dobe however had ears that were wayward all her life. At 14 weeks I'd think it a bit early to tell the final outcome. You say her ears are quite small but are they small in relation to the rest of her? I've always found they have to grow into their ears.

Hiya everyone,

No i wouldnt say they were particularly small in comparison with the rest of her, but they are quite light and not very heavy. We also have a ridgeback and a dalmatian in the family whose ears were always thick and massive as puppies and compared to them her ears do seem small and delicate.

I have emailed the breeder so see if they can shed any light too but please keep posting if you have any ideas!

Fingers crossed as you say they'll sort them selves out after teething, they do seem to have started to go wild just as she entered her mad chewing phase!

She is out first doberman so we dont really know what to expect!

Hi Hilly, :)

I would recommend massaging them as much as possible. Fold them in the correct position and massage all the muscles around the ear. This can help relax them (plus your girl will love all the fuss :) ) I would do it as often as possible. Like previous posters have said, puppies ears can go a bit crazy when they are teething and tend to settle down a bit later on.

Perhaps they can be taped down like people (I think?) tape or used to tape GSD ears to encourage them to stand up?

ive got a friend in boxers who rubs the ear crease with something, i thing its some sort of oil? to soften the ear to allow it to fall correctly. not sure if it actually works, but all her dogs have beautiful ears, puppy got its JW at 14 months and her dad sat on 2 tickets

In our breed (not dobes) most people that show have to tape the ears down in a bonnet style for about 2 to 3 days then let the ears rest for a couple of days then done again. Its usaully done at about 10- 14 weeks of age, if done correctly it wont need to be done again. There is a certian way to do it so the minimal amount of tape is one the ears and a good air flow to the ears is kept 

This might be somthing to think about doing if they dont sit properly, after a certain age ear cartilage will harden and you wont be able to re set them as they will constantly pop back.

Hello again everyone,

I just had a read up on boxer ears, it seems to be quite common that their ears go wild whilst teething and often stay that way. There are lots of pages on the web about getting boxers natural ears to sit properly and they recommend a little bit of tape and massage as some of you guys have recommended. I don't really want to go to drastic measures so i might try a bit of massage and a bit of tape and see how it goes!

Years ago when a family member showed Rough Collies she used to make up a paste which she applied to the tips of the ears, it acted as a weight I think ... but that was when I was a child !

> it seems to be quite common that their ears go wild whilst teething and often stay that way

Boxer ( dobe) ears can be tricky especially if you have imported stock in the pedigree. Generations of cropped ears masked what the ears really looked like.
At any show you will see boxers arriving with taped ears.

Although you can massage the ear down, by softening the cartilage at its base, they will often fly their ears as adults.
Those with unruly ears in the show ring can be seen by the owner fondling them into shape all the time :-)  I know..... I've had them!

The bitch in my avatar was a joy...born that way - grew that way - stayed that way and never altered.

Years ago I had a very well bred GSD who had soft ears. The breeder taped them and taped them  and  we fed this and that but they never went up. I never realsied that some drop eared dogs had the opposite problem.  We people are never happy!
If some Dobes do have erect ears then why do some countries crop the ears? wouldn't it be better just to breed then with upright ears?

> If some Dobes do have erect ears then why do some countries crop the ears? wouldn't it be better just to breed then with upright ears?

They're only semi-erect...that is..... the base few inches has fairly rigid cartilage but the top portion is soft and tips over like a sheltie.

Hi,

I have a 5mth old Dobermann, my breeder showed me how to do a massage his ears & also said you could give him & teaspoon of Calcipet per day. The massage & calcipet have seemed to do the trick. You can also use zinc oxide tape to tape the ears. I have attached a link which should be helpful.

Good luck with your pup.

http://www.doberman-chat.com/showthread.php?t=3552&highlight=tape+natural+ears

Thanks Howarth77. That taping method looks great. I Think i'll give her ears a massage tonight and try that taping technique. My other half is a physio so we have loads of zinc oxide tape lying about everywhere, infact his strapping rolls are some of Daisy's favorite chew toys!

No problem, it's quite hard to describe the massage on here ;-), but the taping technique i'm sure will do the job. :-)

It's all pretty normal for dobe ears to go all over the place including being erect while they are teething. I wouldn't worry too much about it but some massaging won't do any damage :) I wouldn't do any taping. You can PM me if you like :)

Both my dogs (rotty and staff) have terrible ears but none of the parents do.  I massaged my rott boys ears every day but it didn't make any difference to his ear carriage.  His ears went awol when he was teething and never returned to normal.  I read a lot about taping but didn't do it as I thought it would be uncomfortable for him and the risk of infection was off putting too.  Below are some links I found with different methods of taping and massage

http://www.bullmastiffsonline.com/ears.html
http://intrends.tripod.com/MASSAGE.html
http://intrends.tripod.com/TAPING.html
http://www.vomlowenherzigrottweilers.com/tapingears.html

Both my dogs (rotty and staff) have terrible ears but none of the parents do.

I wonder about then next couple of generations behind and parents siblings too? :)

> I wonder about then next couple of generations behind and parents siblings too? :-)

With my staffy I didn't realise you had to fix them and I thought they would sort themselves after teething.  With rotts it appears to be very common that they sit funny without intervention and a rott specific forum I go on has page after page on taping and trying to fix the ears.  It adds character to them! (seys the wifie wi the dugs wi wrang lugs!)

Hi again everybody, thanks for all your responses they've all been great. I massaged her ears for about an hour last night which seemed to do the trick but they were back to their crazy selves this morning!!! I also tried that taping technique which she was fairly happy with for about 10 minutes then she started playing with her toys and they quickly came off! I'm going to stick with the massaging and hope they sort themselves out after teething. As i say they were prefectly floppy and dropped until about 10 weeks and even at 12 weeks they were still  relaxing and dropping when she wasn't playing. It's only at 13-14 weeks that they have gone totally beserk!

Thanks again for being so helpful!