Hello,
My name is Rudy. I have two German Shepherds. One I purchased from a Pet store. The Other one I adopted. I Purchased my first dog from Yuppie Puppy in port Jefferson, NY. I have since heard nothing but horror stories about the pet store. Luckily there is nothing wrong with Simba except the kennel cough she had developed after we brought her home. When my wife and myself wanted a second dog we wanted to make a difference and decided to adopt a dog from a rescue league. So we adopted another female named Greta from the Herding Rescue dog association on Long Island where we live. When we got her she was in the process of being nursed back to health. She was found in Deer Park, NY where she had collapsed from walking until she just could not walk any more. She was just over 50 lbs when adopted her. I never seem to be amazed at the cruelty people can administer to animals but our Greta seems to have .... How do I put it "Cut" ears I have never seen anything like this? My question is has anyone else ever seen such a thing done before and why?
MY BABY'S

Rudy,
Your post is sad. First I would reccomend that you never buy another GSD from a pet shop again. These type of operations care nothing for the breed, and are actually damaging it through indiscriminate breeding and greed. Second, nearly all soundly bred GSD's ears go up. If you have one whose ears were clipped that means that it more than likely is unsound and the previous owners tried to cover this up by clipping the ears.

Rudy,

The link to your dogs didn’t work for me, so I don’t know what Greta’s ears look like. I’m not going to recommend that you don't buy dogs from a pet store, since you clearly indicated that this is not something you would want to go through again. As far as Greta being “unsound”, we don’t know that--she could be the most sound dog in the world. Floppy ears pop up even in the best bred dogs.

Why would anyone cut or clip a shepherd’s ears? Your dog could’ve been used as bait for dog fighting thugs. Pit bulls’ ears are traditionally cut for this reason. Or could be that the dog was stolen and had an ear tattoo with identification number which is impossible to remove. In any case it’s horrible.

I’m sure that every dog lover on this board is happy to hear that Greta is in good hands and will live the rest of her life being taken care of and loved. Best luck to you and your family <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> .

Thank you for all of your answers. Greta's ears do stand up. At the top where the tips would be someone just notched them off. Now she has 2 points at the top where there should be one. But thank you for all of the answers.
Rudy

Could she have lost the tips of her ears due to frost bite?

Natalie

The Vet said there is scar tissue around each of the "V"'s on her ear's from some tipe of cut. Someone said there might of been a tatoo of ID that might be why they cut her. She is such a mush I just do not understand why anyone would do such a thing?

If your dog had an ear tatoo, it would run vertically along the entire inside length of the right ear (well almost, I just measured my puppy's and it is about 2.5 inches long -- she did not understand what I was doing with a ruler up against her ear. To cut off the tatoo would require removal of most of the ear.

I have only seen them in green. Dont know if they are any other color. ....

It it possible that flies could have eaten off the tips and left a jagged edge? They do that if a dog is kept outside in unsanitary conditions without picking up the stools daily.