Doberman Ears.

Ok so I am guessing that this is where this post should be. Anyways... as you all know I have had some problems with Maya's ears and my vet doing a horrid job with taping and posting... so we had an experianced Dog trainer and Dobe owner come and tape Maya's ears... I was going to get the pictures up last night, but I just got tooo busy... so I took the pictures today and here they are.


Sorry if they are big

The tape was a bit reflective in this one, sorry








*more*

I dont know what happened with this one, she moved. But I am trying to give you every view and angle possible





and for reference, here are her ears before

You had them assess her behavior as well, didn't you? How did that go?

Looks like she may be getting some pockets. They're turning inward too much. I'd lose the brace between them, personally. Are you catching that fold on the medial side (side closest to the middle of her head) at the base and keeping it folded the way it is naturally or are you folding it flat? Is this foam? Is it firm enough? I used the tampon method and don't have experience with the foam, although I've heard of many people using it. Just wondering how firm it is.

The foam works fine, I am using it to post a few puppies at work and my friend the dane breeder uses it as well, so if it will hold up dane ears, it has to work

just so everyoe understands, the pics here that she is posting is NOT what resulted in the ears she posted last. the pic of the ears untaped is what they looked before someone ELSE posted them using the foam. personally the posting looks pretty good and is exactly how i post ears (i use the brace in the beginning, shes only been cropped a week or so).

Do you show? I personally don't believe in ear cropping...She is beautiful, I love dobies.. I hope you get them straightened out.

so do you think that the tape job is okay? or should I remove the tape and have Sizzledog do it for me? I would rather do it here in town so that is why i opted for this lady to do it, she is only 5 minutes away.

and yes she left the flap on the part closest to the center of Maya's head natural. she said to let it fold naturally and not try to straighten it. Is this correct?

I wish I could show you in one of your pictures, but you have part of the ear, towards the base folded in the wrong direction which is probably what is making them look so akward when the tape is off...

well you can see in the pictures that I trust my dog with my son on the floor. of course I still watch them like a hawk and I will probably untill my son is probably in his teen years, lol. But that could NOT happen 72 hours ago! Now she wouldnt dream of putting her teeth on us... yes she slips up once in a while but we have just started working on this tuesday night, so I know she cant be perfect yet.

Do you mean the spot where I highlighted? I would think that is what's causing the wonkyness too, but then, I don't have a cropped breed.

I feel for your concerns . I only wish that the show ring would accept dogs as they were whelped . Natural .

Yep, those are the spots! I had a dane that was cropped and I did all his posting/taping. Maybe it's different for dobes, but I never posted the base of the ears like that.

thats the natural fold that carrie is talking about. you dont flatten it out when you post - you wrap the tape around and make sure that little fold STAYS in the ear. it does look like a lot of skin was kept in the "fold" but im not the one handling her ears, i cant tell.


showpug - what do you mean, you never posted the base of the ears. how on earth did you post if you didnt use the bottom of the ear? do you mean you didnt TAPE the ears at the base, or did you really not have a post that went deep into the ear? how on earth did the posts stay if they were not lodged in the ear?

I posted with tampons and they were deep in the ear. It's kind of hard to explain without showing, but I wrapped the skin at the base of the ear in the other direction so it wasn't folded back like that. My danes ears looked similar to the pictures when they were posted, but that skin fold/flap was def. different.

It looks fine as far as I can tell. It is hard to tell for sure, even with your good, close-up pictures. Yes, you leave the flap folded as it wants to lie. Don't roll it, just keep it folded over.

If we're talking about the right ear, wrap counter clockwise....from the middle of the head around the back of the ear and continue around to the front. And the left ear, clockwise. That way, that fold stays in place.

Make absolutely sure that the tape isn't too tight, but just enough to hold things steady. Make sure the post remains in the well of the ear and it never pops out. Yes, it does need to be stablized by having it wrapped from the bottom up and the whole ear snug against the post. My paranoia was always that I didn't have it wrapped too tightly.

I did use vet wrap which isn't so sticky so there was no pain of pulled hairs when changing posts. I used paper tape underneath. Caution: The vet wrap, before I put it on was cut lengthwise so it wasn't so wide and I stretched the livin' daylights out of it first, then wrapped with NO tension at all. About 1/2 hour later, I'd unwrap a little bit to make absolutely sure it wasn't tight because that stuff can tighten up as it sits. If any moisture got on his ears at all, I'd also re-check. Pulling that super sticky tape off can really be miserable so I recommend paper tape under that tape at least. I never used a brace at all. It's just not necessary. And in your dog's case, where his ears are leaning in toward each other, I'd not want to encourage that direction. Lyric's ears stand up nice and straight. If you make weird noises several times a day, and make him move his ears, I think that makes the base where the muscles move the ears stronger if they need to stand straighter.

yeah they are not wrapped tightly... what she did was she wrapped losely and then squeezed the ear gently but tightly enough to make the tape stick better...

Overall, the posting job looks pretty good. The only things I notice are:

1. That brace across the forehead is too tight - it's holding her ears inward, which isn't what you want, especially since Maya had pockets.

2. the flap of skin on the front of the ear isn't as "tucked in" as I'd like it (what kim said). However, this might be due to her crop, I'm used to show crops.

3. caulking rod works pretty well, but every time I've used it (and seen it used), it has lead to stinky ears - once, causing an infection. The foam doesn't do a very good job of wicking away moisture and bacteria, so an infection is more likely (IMO). My breeder uses tightly rolled blue shop towels, and tampons are also absorbent. The drier the ear is inside, the better.


Let's wait on it and see how her ears look in a week or two, okay? If her ears show a marked improvement after this taping, I'd stick with the local woman. If they don't... come on down and visit the red crew here in Ames!

Alright. Yeah I am taking Maya to see her on Wednesday. Then I am out of town untill tuesday (going to Oklahoma to see family)

I will definatly keep posting pictures in this thread to update on her ears.