We on occasion get questions about taping German Shepherds puppy ears. Most come from people who are jumping the gun and worrying too much. By that I mean their pups are 3 or 4 months old and they are starting to panic because their puppies ears are not standing. We tell them that they need patience, they need to wait until their pup has finished teething.
I caution these people not to jump the gun and tape the dogs ears too early or in the wrong way. I know people who have screwed their dogs ears up for life by doing this. I have had puppy customers who go ballistic on me and panic. So I issue a word of caution here.
With that said, the other side of the spectrum of taping ears is something that many people do not take seriously until its’ too late. When ears are taped at 7 and 8 months there is very little chance of it working. This is an unfortunate fact of life.
German Shepherd puppy ears can come up between 8 weeks and 6 months. If they are not up when the dog is through teething (this varies from dog to dog but in general between 16 weeks and 20 weeks of age) I tell my puppy customers to get very interested in their ears. While its not time to panic, it is time to sit up and take notice.
In the rare event a puppy does need ears tapped with use custom made ear prosthetic forms and skin bond to glue them into the ears. These forms usually stay in two to six weeks.
After this time the ears usually stand if not then it is repeated.
The first thing to do is make sure that the puppies are in good health. This means no intestinal parasites, take a stool sample to your vet to have it analyzed. It is very important that you feed high quality food. Dry commercial dog food is not adequate enough to sustain a dogs life especially puppies.
We feed all lot of raw connective tissue meats and raw beefy marrow bones this helps with teething and with ears, hips and elbow development. We are a big fan of adding fresh fruits and vegetables into our puppies diet. Another wonderful product is a freeze dried vegetable mix from www.sojos.com or sojos complete with the added freeze dried meats.