Annoying Head Shaking/Ear Flapping

[cml9076]

Hello
My 4 year old boxer has an annoying habit of shaking his head when he first wakes up in the morning. When he does this his (uncropped) ears beat against the side of his head making a very loud noise that wakes up my wife and also my two month old skin baby (who sleeps in a bassinet at the side of our bed). I don't know if he's doing this because his ears bother him (I don't beleive so as I make sure his ears are throughly inspected each time we go to the vets and there are no issues) or if its just his way of waking up. If it indeed is the latter does anyone have any suggestions of how to break him of this habit?

 

[Slobberchops]

Sorry,no advice.Waldo does the exact same thing,he'll shake his head if needing to go out during the night,and when waking up in the mornings.
I imagine you may just have to get used to it,background noise shouldn't be a deterrent to your baby sleeping wellYour wife may have to start using earplugs

 

[bigboychief]

Yep same here. Chief has used this method to wake us up in the middle of the night if he needs to go outside...pretty much since he was a little baby!

I have heard that their ears could be itchy due to allergies, but I have not done any research on that at all.

Chief did it so much that he formed a callous (sp) on his right ear. It eventually broke the skin and kept bleeding all over the place. Imagine blood slinging everywhere every time he shook his head! It was gross!

We are close to getting Chief trained to STOP when we tell him to. He will start to shake his head and then see that we are about to tell him no, and then stop. So, you may not be able to prevent it, but you can start talking to him and telling him to stop??

 

[RolenKisses]

No advice here...Rolen does it each time he wakes up! I think it might just be a natural thing!

 

[angleheart]

Harley did the same. At night, it would startle me when he was waking up in the living room to come to bed, and I was already in bed half asleep It's their version of stretching and waking up I guess. If it felt good to shake our heads in the morning, we would do it too

 

[cantfindlog]

I guess I don't get why it is annoying? It is a dog. Molly gets up every morning after we "talk" and shakes herself off (ears are flapping)standing on the bed while the husband sleeps. I would imagine it is no different than when us humans yawn in the morning.

 

[bigboychief]

I guess I don't get why it is annoying? It is a dog. Molly gets up every morning after we "talk" and shakes herself off (ears are flapping)standing on the bed while the husband sleeps. I would imagine it is no different than when us humans yawn in the morning.

Because Chief's are LOUD and will wake you up out of a DEAD sleep. We're used to it around here, between Chief flapping his ears and the baby waking up in the middle of the night! LOL

 

[Pearlywhirly]

I was just thinking about this today. Pearl does it a LOT and her ears are fine. It sounds like it would hurt to me but I like to scrub my ears out with a Q-tip so maybe it's the same thing. It is very loud, especially in the middle of the night.

 

[SherylM]

Jack's gotta be the noisiest flapper around!

 

[Jags_Mommy]

I was just telling my friend the other day how annoying I thought this was as well. Jag will shake 2 times at the top of the stairs each morning before I even get to the bottom.
I always think...I am going to get to the bottom before he does it...but he beats me every time...ha ha ha!

I still love him and never thought of telling him not to do it. His ears are cropped...I can just imagine how much louder it must be with them down. Gotta love our fur kids.