# ears , down, what is going on



## carmspack (Feb 2, 2011)

I am curious whether I am spotting a trend or not .

If your dog has a non-erect , soft or hanging ear , which side would that be on , Right side or Left side?


----------



## carmspack (Feb 2, 2011)

I am trying to get some sort of a pole to see whether there is an inclination to soft ears being more common on one side .


----------



## mego (Jan 27, 2013)

are you specifically asking for adult dogs ?


----------



## ksotto333 (Aug 3, 2011)

My Tessa has a semi soft ear. It's her left. Her right ear was up from the day we picked her up.


----------



## carmspack (Feb 2, 2011)

can someone organize this as a new thread with a Poll - I tried but didn't quite come out.

Age of dog -- I guess anything you could have three levels - 
one to 4 months
one to 9 months
and one with a down ear which persists into and throughout adulthood

I have looked at a lot of pictures of dogs lately and a trait began to reveal .

so we have one for the left down --


----------



## selzer (May 7, 2005)

two for the dog's left ear. Oscar. He is 18 months old, and I doubt it will go up now.


----------



## Fodder (Oct 21, 2007)

my Rexy girl was a lefty...


----------



## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

i got Robyn at 3 months old, right ear was not all the way up. Was up within a month, so right ear 1-4 months.


----------



## Fodder (Oct 21, 2007)

eta: left ear remained down into adulthood


----------



## cloudpump (Oct 20, 2015)

Right ear. I saw a show called secret life of dogs once about service dogs being one sided dominate. Would lead with that side always. Also they all had the same swirls of fur going that way. Maybe a similar thing?


----------



## JRC (Jan 27, 2016)

Right side.she is 18 weeks so I'm still hoping for a rise


----------



## carmspack (Feb 2, 2011)

this is what I am after


----------



## Stonemoore (Oct 16, 2014)

Both of Jagger's were down til about 5 months. Both did come up, but they are huge and now at 22 months they still wobble a bit when he runs. Softish ears are the least of his worries lol.


----------



## Pawsed (May 24, 2014)

I've wondered about this as well, so I'm glad you are taking a poll.

Left ears on 2 totally unrelated dogs. Both left ears were slow to come up, about 8 months for each.


----------



## carmspack (Feb 2, 2011)

trend spotting !!


----------



## Ivanlotter (Jan 23, 2016)

Right ear down most of the times but both up when alert.


----------



## carmspack (Feb 2, 2011)

collecting samples

this is the avatar for HappyGoLucky

 

left down


----------



## HappyGoLucky (Apr 7, 2016)

carmspack said:


> collecting samples
> 
> this is the avatar for HappyGoLucky
> 
> ...


That's mine  9.5 months old

I was really worried about it at first and closely worked (and we keep in touch still) with his breeder. He took after his mom and developing a little slower. He was still teething at 6 months (his last baby tooth came out) and even now I check his teeth every other day and they seem to get bigger and bigger every time I look.

Here are some reasons that I've heard of for ears to be floppy:
- teething. It's all connected (teeth, nose, ears) and hurts. Because it hurts, they don't focus on ears a lot.
- growth. While bones and the whole body grows, ears are the last thing where calcium and other stuff goes.
- genetics. The ears might be on a softer side.

One thing to note - when he is excited (interesting scent, noise, or playing with other dogs) - both ears are up without any issues. So I know he CAN get them up when he wants to.

Around 7 months both ears were floppy with the right getting up more often than the left. The breeder and I taped them but it only lasted for 2 days (over the weekend). I saw it bothered him way too much for me to keep watching him suffer and get upset. So i took the inserts out. After that the left ear is almost always up when we walk outside, sometimes both are up when he is asleep downstairs and I come down - he looks at me with both ears up "Hey! Whats up?! Are we going anywhere?".lol. 

Then I saw a few posts on this forum that in some cases ears got up after a 12 months.

But now I absolutely love him for who he is, and even if the left ear never goes up all the time, I'll still love him to pieces. He is just too dear to me now to worry about an ear.

I'll definitely post an update when(if) it starts getting up. But he is still growing and I'll just let nature do its thing.

Don't get me wrong, I would love if they were up already, so it's not like I'm just "settling". I love him very much and happy to have him and give him a loving and caring home for the rest of our lives. I don't plan on showing him but I do want to try him in SAR, and you definitely don't need both ears up to save lives.. hehe. If he has what it takes, of course.


----------



## GSDreSearching (Jul 21, 2015)

Here is my girl. She is 7 months old and as you can see her right ear is very much down. It was up briefly when she was much younger (around 3 months) but it has been down since then. 




















Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Casto (Jun 18, 2016)

left ear 4.5 months old it came up, right ear came up at 12 weeks.


----------

