Beware: what follows is a long, rambling post where you can practically smell my desperation. I apologize in advance for the length and the whining!
Hi all! I haven’t posted on here in several years. I was just looking back at when I created my account here, and my girls were 6 at the time. Sadly, we lost our Leathur this past summer, and lost our sweet Lace in November; they were 10 1/2 (both to congestive heart failure). Between LIFE and my girls being the amazing Dobies they were, I lost track of this forum. But, in mid-December, we got our new angel, Lexi.
Lexi is amazing! Super-fun, with tons of personality, and - so far - the smartest dog I’ve ever owned. We call Lexi “Ms. Fancy-Pants”, as she is a “show quality” Dobie. Even though we were only in the market for a pet, the timing was right for us and Lexi; and I’m super grateful that it was!
Hence, why I’m back: I’m desperate for advice on posting her ears. Leathur and Lace didn’t come cropped (I now know that I bought them from a “hobby breeder”); I had to get them cropped, and we opted for a medium crop. We were taught by our vet to post them in a completely different way, using, if I remember correctly, pill bottles. I didn’t really know what I was doing, although it was helpful to have the vet right around the corner. Lace’s ears came out great, but Leathur’s fell; however, honestly it didn’t bother us because floppy ears completely fit her laid-back, couch potato personality. I really don’t remember posting their ears as being a very big deal; but, that was ten years and three teenagers ago.
Fast forward to now with Lexi: we got her at 13 weeks with a healed and posted show crop. The breeder was as helpful as she could be; she unwrapped and re-posted and wrapped her ears when we picked Lexi up, explaining every detail; we even videoed the whole thing so we’d be able to refer to it at home, as the breeder is several hours away. I started researching, browsing this forum and watched many you-tube videos of ear posting. You know the ones: where the puppy-star of the video sits ever so sweetly still during the entire process, or, better yet, walks over and stands there calmly. (Despite my jealousy , I learned something useful from most of them, and appreciate the people who took the time). I read every posting post on this forum, and again learned a lot.
However . . .
We left the breeder-placed posts in for 7 days (she had told us 5-7 days), delaying as long as we could. And that was a huge mistake! When we finally removed all the tape (oh, the miles of tape!), she had a couple of sores in her ears. On the advice of our vet (who, by the way, no longer crops ears - my two dobies were the last ones he did; his staff “made him promise to not crop ears anymore”), we left the posts off for a week until the sores healed.
Our first attempt at posting was a comedy of errors, the first error being that we tried to post her at her peak time of puppy-craziness. It was like trying to put a cat in a bag! An hour later, we emerged from a narrow victory, exhausted and in disbelief. Huzby and I had already vowed that we would NEVER leave her posts in for more than 3 days, tops. But how on earth would we ever be able to fight this battle: first trying to remove tape that was apparently the stickiest substance known to man, and then wrestle our growing little bundle of puppiness EVERY 3 DAYS !?!? As we weakly high-fived each other, we looked over to see our little princess shake her head and scratch her ear, and saw that the @#&$-ing backer rod had popped out of her ear! In approximately 2 seconds, she had the other one popped out, too.
Since that first time, we’ve: learned to wait until Lexi is calm and preferably sleepy; tried popping the bottoms of the backer-rod back in and taping over them (another huge mistake that cost us another week to let yet another sore heal, along with a heaping side of extreme guilt); learned to use baby oil to loosen the tape that can stick to itself throughout eternity (but which can be scratched and shaken loose at the bottom of a dog’s ear no matter how many layers you add); learned NOT to soak down said-tape with said-baby oil without promptly removing the tape and posts (which made removal easier, but required an extra thirty minutes to then clean and remove tacky, sticky tape residue from dog fur); tried using 1/2-inch backer rod instead of 5/8-inch backer rod, thinking that maybe a smaller bore would fit into the ear better, but which instead breaks off when scratched with dog paws. We’ve tried tons of tape; we’ve tried the two-pieces of tape. We’ve tried taping cotton balls to the bottom the the backer rod, hoping to make it less slippery. Same results: my little angel pops out the bottoms of the backer rod.
I feel like I push the backer rod down in her ear all the way. I leave the bottom 3/4 inch uncovered and insert it in her ear canal. I also think this is complicated by the fact that she’s not used to having the posts in (because of the time we left them out to heal her sores), so she goes after them, trying to get them out. She shakes, she scratches, and she rubs her head on her bed, trying to scrape them out.
I’m not ready to give up. I’ve started to post on here several times asking for advice, but every time I think “this will be the time that we get it right, and they will stay in properly”. And so far, every time, it’s a big fail. The only times we’ve made it over 24 hours, she’s ended up with sores in her ear. She’s 17 weeks old now. Any tips y’all can offer will be appreciated.
How do you get the bottoms of the backer rod to stay in? Am I just not pushing them in far enough? Should I use more tape for now? Should I tape under her chin for a few days? Use a cone (oh, how she’ll hate that)? Thanks again for any advice you can offer.