I posted about a month ago that I was worried b/c Kodee's right ear wasn't going up at all. His left ear had been up solidly since about 9-10 weeks, if I remember correctly. At that time, pretty much everyone, including Ed advised me to not worry about it so early, as he was not yet 5 mos old and was still teething.

He will be 6 mos old on 1/12, and he is almost (not quite) done teething from what I can tell. I've read Ed's eBook "Taping German Shepherd's Ears" several times. He advises that if your pups ears aren't up by 5 mos, he strongly recommends that you get involved w/taping them.

So, my questions are:

1) If he's 5-1/2 mos old now, and almost done teething (but not quite) should I start taping?

2) If one ear is up, should I tape the floppy ear across the top to the straight ear, or will that mess up the straight ear?

3) If any of you have taped ears, what method worked easiest for you? Ed's article mentions 2 or 3 different methods.

Thanks in advance for your help. His ear was just driving me crazy before, but now I' getting worried about it staying permanently down.

Did the soft ear ever go up at all since you have had him? Both of Tosca's ears went up and down throughout the teething stage. I think now they are both up permanently, but that can change.

I know this is going to sound weird and this question is open for anybody. Can a dog's diet have anything to do with ears going up? It seemed to me that whenever Tosca had a raw chicken wing, her ear would straighten up.

His left ear (the one that has been up forever) went up and down for a short while when he was very small, then went up (laid on his head), then stayed upright. It's never gone back down during teething.

His right ear (the one that's soft), has never gone up, before or during teething. That's why I'm so worried.

BTW-I have been giving him RMB's and raw eggs w/shell to increase his calcium intake, although I don't see any difference so far.

Cindy and I taped my Mal Toni's left ear FOREVER! Her ears are gigantoric and the left would collapse under it's own weight.

What we used was a stiff Dr.Scholl's insert cut to fit inside the ear. We used colostomy bag glue (from a pharmacy) on the insert and stuck it in the ear. We then took cloth first aid tape and wrapped around the base of her ear so that the ear was kind of conical in shape. We left this in til it fell out on its own. If the ear still flopped we put in another one. The main thing is that the ear canal was open so that we never had any issue with infection.

As you can see by my sig pic, the ear is now standing... though still gigantoric!

Hope this helps you!

I think we started taping at about 5 months. The ear would only come up if she was focused on something. Otherwise it flopped over or stuck out. We quit taping at about a year old and the ear finally decided to stand on its own at 18 months.

So if I tape the right ear, do I need to make a "bridge"-like thing and tape it to the left ear? Or can I just tape the right ear upright and leave the left one alone completely (what I mean is, will the right ear stay taped in the upright position if it isn't attached to the left? I definitely don't want to mess up the left ear that's looking great now.

Well, I just called my vet, and she said now is the time to tape it, but she's never done it before. So she's going to research it and call me back. She wasn't sure how long you should tape for, but she was sure that now was a good time to start. I have medical tape (the paper kind that's not super-sticky), and toilet paper rolls, as well as that foam insulation that you wrap pipes with, so I guess I will use one of those. I don't have any skin bond-type glue. I think I've researched enough that it sounds like I know as much as she does about the taping. I'd still like input from any of you who have experience w/this. Thanks!

This is what Toni looked like when we did both ears. We never bridged them even when we just taped one.
http://www.leerburg.com/Photos/kellydogs.jpg

The first time we taped we wrapped them with vet wrap around a tampon. It did not work well and we ended up with a nasty yeast infection in both ears.

I don't think I have any other pics of her ear taped, but I will look when I get home.

Kori, try cutting a shoe insert (like Dr.Scholl's or something) into an ear shape and taping that. It's soft, flexible, and doesn't have to go INTO the ear to do it's job well. That was the last step in Simon's ears, and needed no bridge. Also, I've noticed my raw fed dogs never had issues w/ears, but kibble-fed dogs do. I swear it's calcium in bone, egg shells, etc. Simon only had his ears taped once (for 2 weeks) to stand, and the vet said to prepare for 2-3mos. Now, he's not a GSD of course, but I don't know why the same method wouldn't apply.

Here is maybe a better picture of his ears. This is as upright as his right ear ever gets, and it doesn't happen very often:

http://s267.photobucket.com/albums/ii303/kbigge/?action=view&current=ShepherdBoyandKodee012.jpg

Thanks Jenni for answering my question about diet being a contributing factor. I thought maybe it was my imagination that feeding raw chicken wings made a difference.