What is the natural look in a Doberman? What
is the natural ear exactly?
The natural ear in the dog is the prick
ear. Let's look at the natural dog. The
pariah dog has a prick
ear. So does the dingo.
So does every natural dog on the face of the
earth. As a matter of fact check all
mammals. They all have prick
ears with some notable exceptions: humans
and dolphins.
Do you think there is no reason for cropping? There are health reasons.
The erect air gets better air circulation and has less infection
problems. Check with your veterinarian and ask her if the hound
ear has more infection problems than the
prick ear. Now maybe she just hasn't been
paying attention and hasn't catalogued the
ears with infections. I have. Cropping is
good animal husbandry. What about the
taping? Some people are worried about the
pain incurred with taping. If you are, use
masking tape. If the cropped dogs are with their littermates, masking
tape will come off in 10-30 hours. Then you just re-tape them with
masking tape. What does this accomplish?
1) Infection is reduced considerably and/or is more readily spotted.
2) Air circulation is increased.
3) You learn to do a better job of
taping.
4) You learn to do a faster job of
taping.
5) Minor improvements in how you tape the
ears insure better end results.
6) There is no pain and no strain.
7) The puppies don't develop hand shyness around the
ears as sometimes happens with
traditional taping. As a matter of fact, they may enjoy
the taping. You're giving them extra attention.
Rather than hand shyness they welcome hands around the
ears.
Humans have bred and developed dogs with unnatural
ears so let's get rid of all the sporting
dogs and the trail hounds. Then there are the .... – well you get the
idea.
Shall we replace good animal husbandry with political correctness? Walt
Disney's Goofy has hound
ears. Do you want a
pretty dog or a goofy dog?
SOME TAPING SUGGESTIONS
If you have access to a source for Skin
Bond ask them about a product made by the same manufacturer that is
called Skin Prep. It is a small pad, individually wrapped in a foil
packet with twenty-five packets to a box. Use one pad to do both ears.
It applies as a liquid but quickly dries to an invisible protective
coating on the skin inside the ear. Go way down into the ear base.
Allow to dry for one minute and then apply the Skin Prep and the ear peg
of your personal choice. Apply Neo-Predef powder to the backside (hair
side) of the ears, making sure to cover the pocket near the base. Now
use a roll of gauze to wrap the entire ear, if your puppy has allergies
to tape, from the base to almost the tip. Then apply overlapping strips
of tape. If you still have reaction problems to the ear tape, use vet
wrap instead of tape to cover the gauze completely. Make sure you catch
a small bit of skin and hair near the base and at the tip so the gauze
doesn't go flying when the pup shakes it's
head. With this method you will never have any of those nasty
oozing tape reactions or blisters in the bases of the ears or anywhere
else on the ears again.
submitted courtesy of Noreen DePalma,
USA
With all the talk about taping ears---I
thought I'd pass along the method I use to roll the ears. After
reading about the duct tape around the caulking and the tampon method, I
feel that perhaps this method may help some that are having problems
with the other methods.
For newly cropped puppies take a sheet of Bounty paper towel (Bounty
because it is thicker and absorbent). Fold the sheet into quarters
and then take the square of paper towel and on a table begin to TIGHTLY
roll the paper towel into a tube. Then take the tape (I use a
silky cloth tape by 3M called Durapore in one inch size which is quite
sticky) and secure the roll about one inch from the bottom of the tube
of paper. Tape it around, then flip the roll around and keeping
the roll tight and the tape pulled taut, work up the roll, tape side
out, to the top, then down again. Usually taping the roll up and
then down the tube will be enough to stiffen the tube.
Then I use a either a product called Skin
Bond by Smith & Nephew (1-800-876-1261) which is a natural rubber
adhesive used for "stomas" from colostomy's and illiostomy's OR eyelash
glue that can be purchased at Walmart. It is a white glue that you
will thinly brush on the inside of the ear. Blow on the glue to
dry it slightly and thus make it tacky, then insert the taped tube into
the ear with the one inch of exposed paper towel, to act like a "wick"
end, as far as possible into the ear canal. Then squeeze the ear
around the tube to make sure the ear/glue is in good contact.
After that, proceed to take your strips of tape, starting at the base
and proceed to tape according to Carol Petruzzo's method on the pages
taping
8 and
taping 9.
The use of the glue prevents the puppy
from popping the tubes out of the bottom of the ears. On older
puppies use one and one/half paper towels rolled into a tube. It
is simply a thicker tube for the larger ear. The glue can be used with
tampons and the tubing but the paper towel (Bounty) does a great job
with the ears and does it cheaply. Give it a try.
Theresa Mullen, Terrylane, USA
What I've used lately for pockets or
sinks is *packing popcorn* (foam, not real popcorn) (the ones that are
about one inch in length ... possibly a little longer) .Reverse tape it
like you would a plug for ears. Pull the ear straight up and look
on the outside of the ear for the dimple which is about 1/2 inch from
the head on the uncropped side. Stick the "popcorn" inside the
dimple (on inside of ear) until the dimple is forced out and put a strip
of tape around the ear holding the taped popcorn in place. Leave
this up for 5 days, take down and see how ears look. If they go
back to the same, repeat procedure as many times as it takes to
straighten out ear. Do not tape up much higher than the popcorn.
Ears should look straight. Don't use brace between ears. If
done correctly, they should stand straight.
Judy Bohnert, Equinox, Canada
CORRECTING POCKETS OR SINKS
You can cut wine corks in half lengthwise
which will give you two pieces, one for each ear. Back wrap the cork
with tape (sticky side out) and place the curved side inside the ear
with the base resting below the little 'button' inside the ear. Wrap
tape around the cork and the ear being very careful not to get it too
tight. Take about three pieces of tape to cover the entire length of the
cork. Since there is nothing inside the base of the ear you can leave
the corks in for several days. It may take a few tapings but it is a
pretty effective method.