You will need to keep posting for months and months! Depending on the style of crop/size/cartilage, the ears possibly could be standing by 6 months of age or it can be as long as 2 years of age before they stand. You need to keep posting them, only leave them down long enough to air out and get them back up in posts! Here is a tutorial on posting and also a thread where you can see if someone near to you will help you with posting:

http://www.dobermantalk.com/puppy-corner/47747-ear-posting-directions-photo-tutorial-my-method.html

http://www.dobermantalk.com/puppy-corner/46952-ear-posting-if-you-can-will-help-new-owners-ears-please-post-here.html

Member Zoomatl is in Georgia (atlanta area) and may be willing to help with ears if you send him a PM. amy011079 is also in Georgia (athens area)

 

Well, the pic is a little small so its hard to really see the ears, but to me it looks like there is a little difference in the way they sit. My suggestion would be to either take him to see one of the breeders or DT members near you and have them help you post them, or keep doing it yourself, but either way, keep them posted. I dont remember how old you said he was but I am pretty sure with them posted for a while he will stand. Its just going to take some persistence on your part, and for you to remember not to get discouraged. Any time you feel like giving up, come here and get some encouragement, but dont give up! Now, if you have been posting his ears and he's like, say 3 years old and they arent standing, well then I guess you could just accept they wont stand but give it a reasonable amount of time to work. When I unwrapped my girls ears after the first week they fell like they had never been cropped. So dint give up!

 

My dobe had the cup and stitches removed at 9 weeks old.

We diligently posted for the next 4 months...and one ear was lazy.
- we called our champion breeder and she said, "I have never sold a puppy with bad ears"...lol

Those words - was the only kick in the arse statement...we needed to hear.
Amy kept getting out of her posts, shaking her head, under the bottom of the coffee table.
After spending 20 minutes, all my wife could do is laugh.
- after all, we wanted a smart & crafty girl and she humoured mom real good / while playing the family Doc, with the surgical tape

Like StarlightDobe said: "and for you to remember not to get discouraged".

A month later at 7 months old...we finally had won the battle / and proud of ourselves, for keeping with it.
- but it takes time (no magic bullet / quick fix), and takes months to finally work

Would be helpful to know how old your dobe is and how many months have you have been reposting the ears ??

 

Thanks I know how to post ears so that's not an issue at all...I'm just trying to see if this is a bad crop job for some reason which will cause the ears to never stand right like the new vet told me. I know it will take months of hard work which is fine. I just wanted to know if it looks like we are on the right track....I'll just keep posting and praying!

 

Is the puppy just off cups and this is the first post or what? Not sure I understand the whole story.

I would suggest you puppy in the center part to bring the ears together and I am wondering if you are stretched the ears up enough. They can not sag in the posts and must stick to it. You really have to pull them up to prevent pockets. And dont leave them down long. If he is shaking he may have a sore inside the ear, in that case we have seen people use the half posts. They should improve but you MUST post till they are done teething or they will fall or lean or not be right. Keep it up and maybe getting help from a local breeder would be good, check the dpca breeder list.

 

I've only had him for a week. I bought him from a family who had to rehome him due to their aggressive bulldog. His ears were not in cups. They were just hanging while waiting for the stitches to come out. His stitches came out on Monday and the vet did the first taping. They have been posted a week. The vet did an excellent job taping so I don't think that's an issue.

 

As I said in your earlier thread about this, it's not at all unusual for puppy ears to be as limp as noodles when you remove posts in the early days of ear posting. Nothing about the way your puppy's ears look right now would concern me in the least.

They may or may not stand long term, but it's much too soon to know one way or the other. Just keep posting.

 

That is so true so keep posting!

 

When my pup's ears were being posted I didn't even bother considering if they were done until he was about 6 months old. I'd unwrap the posts and barely look at him while the posts were out (5 min or so) so that I wouldn't worry or wonder. I would definitely suggest that method to anyone, my boy's ears were posted for a little over 6 months and I didn't find myself worrying at all until the last two weeks or so.

It's definitely too soon to really make any assumptions. I suggest putting it to the back of your mind for a few months and just keep posting them.

 

Just keep posting, just keep posting, posting, posting...
(imagine a picture of Dory here)

 

Put calcium supplements in his food or water. Give the same quantity as a child and it's supposed to make a big difference in the cartilage strength!

A got this tip from a woman who had a few dobermans. I give some to my puppy right now.

 

DRAT! I did not mean to hit "thanks"--meant to hit "quote"

That's VERY bad advice wannadog. Unless the dog is actually suffering from malnutrition there is no reason for a puppy being fed even a mediocre kibble diet is getting plenty of calcium. And you should know that too much calcium in a puppy diet can cause more problems than you even want to think about.

There was time when kibble didn't generally have enough calcium in it and did need to be supplemented and I know breeders who evidently have no idea that things have changed.

Over and above that it's questionable whether just adding calcium to a diet does anything at all for cartilage. Calcium is definitely needed for appropriate bone growth in puppies but it needs to be balanced with other minerals to be effective.

If you can't stand not meddling with the calcium in a normal kibble and feel you MUST add more at least add it in a form that isn't so likely to do harm. Giving a puppy a spoonful (tablespoon for a Dobe puppy) of yogurt or cottage cheese with his meals would accomplish that. Yogurt has more immediately bioavailable calcium but cottage cheese is a reasonable alternative.

 

I know you're fretting about this. You've posted several threads on the subject. I think it would be helpful if you were to ask your vet to clarify why he thinks the ears will never stand with posting as is. That might help the more knowledgeable posters on here give you better feedback. Perhaps the vet is seeing something in the crop that the pictures you post can't show. Or if he's not able to offer a reasonable rationale for his dim prognosis then that'll will give us insight about his motives stemming from greed or an attempt to con you into expensive and unnecessary surgeries. Regardless just try posting and in the end if it doesn't work you can go the implant route, right? No need to worry - post your butt off and see what happens.

 

Well...don't know about that but I don't think a tablespoon of yogurt will have a lot of calcium.

I myself, train very hard for almost 4 years now, and let me tell you that supplements make a difference. Of course good sleep and exercise is the most important thing, but supplements does make a difference.

Calcium only seem logic to improve bones and cartilage.

Let me tell you, I never had caries in my teeth in all my life, I have strong teeth and I know it's because I drank a lot of milk and ate well when I was young.

There's nothing wrong with increasing calcium amount of a puppy, as long as you don't give too much. He cant make an overdose of calcium if you give him just a little bit.

 

There's nothing wrong with increasing calcium amount of a puppy, as long as you don't give too much. He cant make an overdose of calcium if you give him just a little bit.

This is incorrect advice; following it can cause all kinds of problems. Why? Because the Calcium/Phosphorous ratio must be correct, and if you only give calcium, you will unbalance that ratio. It may be true that if they only got a little unbalanced it wouldn't cause long term problems, but how would you define 'little'?

Here's a page that discusses this...

Calcium & Phosphorous Requirements for Dogs

I would recommend feeding a balanced diet unless your vet recommends otherwise.

 

Too much calcium for a puppy can cause the bones to grow faster than the connective tissue, causing the puppy to "knuckle over". If not addressed, more serious problems can occur down the line, requiring operations, and causing a great deal of pain for the dog.

I fed Elka Eagle Pack Large Breed puppy formula, at her breeder's recommendation. She started to knuckle over, I went to the vet for x-rays to make sure the growth plates were still open, etc. Then I switched her to a good quality adult food. Not that Eagle Pack is poor quality, but puppy food had too much calcium for her needs. Her change in diet corrected her knuckling very quickly.

If you feel you wish to supplement your dog's diet, discuss it with a vet or a canine nutritionist first.

But really, you need to post your dog's ears for longer than a week to get them to stand. And they will be floppy for awhile. It just takes time and growing.

 

Proper diet and persistant posting! If you vet did the crop / cut correct.
I have 6 doberkidz,...I have two gals with medium-long crops and they both stayed in post for 6-7 months(arggg,.teething,..1st season,..etc),..my male has a military crop, took 3 weeks,..I now have a nine month old female with a show crop,..and I'm still posting even though they stay up for a few days,..we are still remodeling the cartilege to correct for a minor fold & ocassional flop,..sigh! Don't give up,..and good luck!


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Maybe the woman who gave me that tip was wrong or I don't know.

She just said it helped her dogs to have straight ears...She told me of a another person she knew who had trouble getting his dog's ears straight and apparently it solved the problem by giving the dog a bit of calcium powder in the food.

 

btw that is a very nice looking red dobe - I am jealous.

 

"when a vet told me that I needed to either do an implant or redo the crop to make them stand. I opted for posting instead..."


This is just a strange blanket statement to me. I certainly, if I was in front of this vet who allegedley said that my dogs ears would never stand unless I did an "implant" shortly after a cropping surgery, would be curious about this statement? Was this the vet clinic who did the surgery? --- that would be a bad sign. I just don't understand so soon after sx, you say vets are saying a puppy's ears are not going to stand? If some vet in a vet clinic made an inappropriate statement, I would be the first person to talk with the owner-- usually a DVM, for clarification. I am A RN, and I just don't understand so soon after ANY surgery, a medical professional would make a failure prediction, without a substantial theoretical diagnosis. My husband is a DVM and we have a new Doberman baby. (He did not do the crop.). He would never say after any sx a blanket failure comment-- unless there was a REASON? I think we are all wondering what was the basis for this comment? If you don't know. ASK. Thank you and Good Luck! PS: Do not be intimidated at the clinic.... ASK questions! Pick up the phone! And, let us know.

 

The vet who said this is NOT the vet who did the crop. The crop was done by a vet in another state before I bought Gunner. This vet is also not my regular vet. My regular vet does not do ear crops and thus referred me to this vet who does crops and has a very good reputation (supposedly). The first time I met this vet, Gunner's ears had been hanging for a week until it was time for the stitches to come out. When the vet saw him to have the stitches taken out, he looked at them and said they wouldn't stand. He said my options were to either tape them and pray, do a small removable implant instead of posting, or redo the crop all together. He was concerned because they weren't standing, but I pointed out that they had NEVER been taped at this point and I didn't expect them to be standing. He tried to get me to do the pricey implant procedure, but I opted for just posting them as planned. We went back today to have them retaped and I am happy with the progress. They aren't standing, but they are definitely a lot firmer and in more of an up position. The vet suggested the implant again but I refused. He sold me some more tape and sent me home to wrap them myself. At this point, i won't be going back. His ears have healed fine and I am a lot more confident that with constant posting, they will stand. If not, I would consult another vet. This guy honestly just seems like he's trying to sell me stuff. When I asked him why he thought they wouldn't stand, he really wouldn't give me a straight answer. Basically just said because they weren't trying to stand at all yet. Duh!! They hadn't been posted!

 

Oh. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. In your original post, it sounded like the vet looked at your pup's ears and made the blanket statement, "Um, not going to stand... Do an implant or recrop", without even trying to get the ears up by posting. I am glad that you asked more questions. You should try with all of the valuable advice here on this site to post the ears yourself. I also was a bit suprised that in this post you said that the vet sold you some tape to go home and post, by yourself. The DVM that I took our Baby girl for the crop, was the same one that I drove 1.5-2 hrs each way, so he could see the progress after he cropped our pup's ears. He personally instructed me and did the tapings for me until I came back a few weeks later and had done our girl's ears by myself. He then said we were on the right track, don't come in again, unless a problem. And he wanted to see her in a year to see how her ears turned out at maturity. (I just thought that was really a nice sweet touch. I admire a doc that wants to see how his work turned out down the road and not just preoccupied with the immediate result.).

 

I had actually had to retape the ears the day before taking him in so the vet saw how I had posted them. He knows I'm experienced with taping ears and said I had done an excellent job posting them so he gave me some more tape and said I could do it myself. He wanted the ears to hang a few hours to dry out which is another reason he didn't wrap them himself at the appointment.

 

I'm not understanding what the concern is, it would be rare to have *any* puppies ears stand that quickly. Heck, my puppy is 5 months old and his ears aren't even close to standing and I'm not in the least bit concerned about it. I don't ever leave them down "for a few hours" though, IMO that's bad advice. The longest Ethan's ears have ever been down since he was cropped was 15 minutes and that was just so I could take some goofy pictures of his dorky ears. He normally doesn't even get off the table. I make the new posts, put him on the grooming table, take down his old posts, wipe out his ears and put his new ones in immediately.

 

just keep posting it will happen some just take time ! good lookin pup