ear carriage for natural

[blueskies]

I hope someone can help me with this question ... sorry if it is a stupid one but hey the only stupid questions is one not asked, eh?
As you can see in my girl Sadie's pic (the avatar under my screen name) she has weird ears, kinda fly away or what I refer to as "Flying Nun" LOL She is 4 1/2 months old, is this going to be her permanment carriage? I have looked at tons of pics of y'all beautiful Boxer Babies and havent quite seens ears like Sadie's so I dont know what to think. Also on the subject of ears ... I would have sworn I saw that for showing in conformation there was no preference between cropped and natural but now that I have read and reread the AKC standard I only see mention of cropped ears *boggle* Sadie was just purchased as a show prospect on Friday (12/14/01) with natural ears and at this age she is too old to have them cropped without inserts and I know from years and years ago with Dobermans inserts are a big no-no for the show ring being considered a foriegn body, right?
Boy, seems like I am full of a million questions and get long winded everytime I write a post LOL Sorry 'bout that! :D
TIA for your imput.

 

[JulieM]

Yes, unfortunately uncropped ears are a deviation from the standard in the US (not so in Canada). However, there are some natural-eared Champion dogs and there are some natural-eared dogs (one owner-handled) that are doing well in the show ring. It is really a minor deviation, and unless you have a judge who is trying to make a political statement, they will probably not play too much into the decision - but of course the rest of the dog has to be up to standard. There is a listing on the Internet of judges who will put up natural-eared dogs (and those who will not), I don't have the exact address but I know it's been posted in the Forums in the past.

Most vets would not crop at this age, anyway. The "flying nun" look seems to be a common one - my natural-eared girl went through it for a while, but her ears are fine now. There is a website about taping a natural ear to get it to lay properly - again I don't know the address but it's in the Forums.

 

[blueskies]

thanks Julie

Originally posted by JulieM
It is really a minor deviation, and unless you have a judge who is trying to make a political statement, they will probably not play too much into the decision

thank you Julie. I will search around on the forums and see if I can find the list you mentioned but also thank you for letting me know its a deviation but not necessarily a DQ.

Most vets would not crop at this age, anyway. The "flying nun" look seems to be a common one - my natural-eared girl went through it for a while, but her ears are fine now. [/B]

Now see thats what I thought as well that most vets wouldnt go near her at this age for cropping but then I had a person email me last night stating that she is not too old for cropping and her Vet wouldnt preform a crop until at least 16 weeks old and does them up til 1 yr old :confused:
I also had a lot of pepople email and tell me to rest assurd that Sadie is just teething and her flying nun ears will go back to normal when she stops teething Sooooo what I figured from all of this is we love her regarless of how her ears look so we're just gonna let nature take its course LOL
Thanks again!!!!!

Mel and the crew

 

[Nedra's_momma]

Julie has given you lots of great information on natural ears and showing a dog with natural ears in the US. Like she said it really depends on the judge.

Even natural ears have to lay a certain way. Many people are against ear cropping and one of the reasons they will give for it is the taping and aftercare involved with cropped ears, when natural ears actually have to be taped *longer* than cropped ears for some reason.

I taped Nedra's ears because she had one ear that "flew" much like you described with your pup. I taped her for three or four months and her ear still "flies" occasionally. If I were to show her, I would just have had to tape them the night before a show. I began taping her at the age of 6 months because a puppy's ears tend to do funny things when they are teething anyway. Someone else was asking about how I did it, so I set up a quick webpage to better describe it. You can find it here, and this is what worked for me: http://216.201.21.117/boxer/natear.html

Another site for taping natural ears can be found here: http://intrends.tripod.com/TAPING.html I tried this method before trying the other method, but I found that it didn't work as well for what I needed it to do.

Nedra before taping: http://www.boxerworld.com/photo/data/5523Nedra2.jpg

Nedra after taping: http://www.boxerworld.com/photo/data/5523Nedramug.jpg

Here is the database of judges that will put up a natural eared dog: http://www.jlhweb.net/judges_db.pdf .

Good luck!

 

[Krikkit]

Originally posted by Nedra's_momma
Even natural ears have to lay a certain way. Many people are against ear cropping and one of the reasons they will give for it is the taping and aftercare involved with cropped ears, when natural ears actually have to be taped *longer* than cropped ears for some reason.

Jessica, I'm not sure about natural ears taking longer to be taped to sit right. Out of our seven Boxers we have never ever taped any ears and they all have fine ear sets indeed Out of everyone I know showing Boxers very few people tape natural ears as a matter of routine and will only do it if they feel the ear is going to fly when the pup is older. But then, for the most part, we have dogs here who have been uncropped for generations so the ear set is pretty well sorted out. This is not a crop / don't crop post, just a FYI really

Sharon

 

[Nedra's_momma]

LOL, thanks Krikkit!

I guess I should have said this before, but I heard it from a few breeders in a conversation on another board. Consequently, I have never taped a cropped dog, only Nedra, and her one ear flew from 8 weeks (which was when the first photo was taken), so I have a feeling that it wouldn't have fixed itself.

 

[Krikkit]

Well, all that patience was worth it Jessica, Nedra has very cute ears

Sharon

 

[Nedra's_momma]

Thanks Krikkit, a quick question though... I have a friend that has a boxer in which both ears permanently fly. The cartiliage is very tough now, because she is four years old, and her ears are permanently laid back against her head. She is here in the US also. Wondering how many other US boxers have ears like this, and wondering why this would be more common for ears to fly here than it is in Aust. It seems weird, but, you don't think it has anything to do with lines, do you?

 

[JulieM]

[quoe]Wondering how many other US boxers have ears like this, and wondering why this would be more common for ears to fly here than it is in Aust. It seems weird, but, you don't think it has anything to do with lines, do you?[/quote]

Absolutely it has something to do with lines - US breeders have never had to worry about breeding for correct natural ears - and I dare say most US breeders would not even know what a correct natural ear was. When the Standard is changed to allow natural ears, breeders will be scrambling to find good ones to breed to!

 

[Nedra's_momma]

Wow, I had no idea! Thanks for explaining it for me Julie!

Do you think that some dog's ears will still fly no matter how much you tape?

Also, how are ears that fly regarded in countries that allow natural ears? I know that they aren't desirable, and where showing is concerned it depends largely on the judge, but how much of a penalty do they carry?