Advice needed: Continue ear training or am I done?

[Daisy1015]

Sonic is 14 months now, he has had his ears glued since before I got him at 12 weeks and ever since. Once teething hit his ears flew like no sheltie we have had before, but then his whole teen existence has been extremes. Grrr. He is a late bloomer in everything. Started teething at 5 1/2 months and lost his last teeth at 10 1/2 months. Usually I can stop ears at 12 months, but I kept his glued until a week ago at 14 months due to the late teething. He does not have thick ears, if anything a little on the thinner side but not paper thin. They are a little on the larger side to me proportionately but my last dog had smaller and perfect ears and Sonic still has immature coat and just finished his one year shed.

Do I give up at this point? Excuse the need for trimming I was waiting to make my decision on ears before trimming and shaping to meet the needs of his ears which are a bit different than my last dog. They have been up for a week. He can also pull them up better to the center but in a house of kids there is alot of competing noises....and sometimes...why bother?

After 2 days up

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After 5 days up amd maintaining like this on day 7
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[Ann]

I don't think his ears look bad at all from the side. But if you're worried about them going up, keep them glued. Or try a trick I learned a few years ago from one of our Spanish breeders on this forum. Ask your pharmacist for a bottle of pure glycerin (some may need to order it for you). Put a drop on the inside and one on the outside of the ear tips every other day or so. If the ears are tipping at all, as his seem to be, the glycerin will add enough weight to keep them down without the hassle of glue. This worked wonderfully well for finishing the ears on one of my puppies after 12 months.

For what it's worth, one of my girls needed her ears glued until she was 3. Whenever I wasn't showing her, the ears went back in. So it does happen. She's six now and her ears still aren't the best, but they aren't up either. Sometimes you just have to stick with it.

 

[Daisy1015]

I was hoping you would respond! They aren't going prick but they are more up/down depending on the moment or if he is looking up.' His coat is immature around head (and everywhere) still. I am hoping once the hair around head grows and fills in the gap between skull and pink inner ears he won't look so batty from front. The genetics for decent coat in thickness and length are there and his longest belly hair is below the elbow and his texture is perfectly on the coarse side so i will keep my fingers crossed.

I may reglue for one more cycle but the glycerin may be that last little something he needs while they finish maturing. I will be needing to learn to trim these ears different thAn my last boy. His ears spoiled me. Never not tipped even if laying down. Perfect ear set and always held up and in position. Sigh.

Thank you so much for responding!

 

[tesslynn]

I finished Kaleigh's ears off with chewing gum...it added the right amount of weight. Nice pics-nice looking lad!

 

[Ann]

Daisy, here's my Ruffles. I stopped gluing her ears around 12 months and just used glycerin for another few months. They came out beautifully. I've heard people use chewing gum too, but it can be messy to remove and you don't want the dog to eat it.

 

[tesslynn]

Daisy, here's my Ruffles. I stopped gluing her ears around 12 months and just used glycerin for another few months. They came out beautifully. I've heard people use chewing gum too, but it can be messy to remove and you don't want the dog to eat it.
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Ann, you know I like ya and mean no disrespect. But chewing gum STICKS solid if done right, and to get it out isn't hard you can use peanut butter, olive oil, eyelash remover or even unisolve just like with tape. There are many ways to achieve a goal, just giving an option I used with great success.