# mals with soft ears



## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

couldn't find anything in the search mode ....
i'd like to hear from anyone who has had a mal whose ears did not stand up

looking at an 18 month male with both ears down, not just the tips dropping over at the top

FCI papers include : 

Dam : DIVA (Gilau Sandor) - Hungarian FCI
Avanti Van Het Berkenmeer
Blania Van Joefarm

Sire : Martin NPA Detection Dog - Hungarian FCI
Panzer NPA Detection Dog
Marion NPA Detection Dog

are soft ears more common in any particular bloodline and if so, what ones ?

is there any data that shows a connection between nutrition and soft ears in malinois besides speculation ?

would like to hear from those who have seen it firsthand and PM's are fine

i'm not judging the dog based on ears, but i have concerns about what floppy ears might have to do regarding the health of the dog. would be reassuring to know of any particular bloodlines where soft ears show up

pics would be great and i have some i can PM back 

it is hard NOT to apply my uneducated logic that this condition could result from an inadequate diet as the pup was developing....but that is all it would be, so i am looking for those with a lot more experience, or those who have worked with Mal rescue groups, etc

TIA


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

correction to my original post

sorry, dog is ELEVEN MONTHS old, not 18months :-((((

but still not expecting them to pop up any day soon


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## Selena van Leeuwen (Mar 29, 2006)

If they're still down at 11mo, they won't come up. Haven't heard of any health problems if a dog has soft ears, maybe he can get an earinfection earlier as a dog with errect ears, but otherwise?

He doesn't bite with his ears ;-)


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## Alice Bezemer (Aug 4, 2010)

Never heard of healthproblems and floppy ears being related in any way. Some dogs have firmer ears then others. I prefer standing due to earinfections and stuff like that. Had pups with soft ears that stood after losing the last puppy canines, had pups that kept small soft tips at top of ears but at times the would stand, had pups with overstretched ears that looked like they had a curling iron working on them :lol: Had pups with perfect ears as a pup only to end up with half soft ears... Doubt there's a real health, food or bloodline aspect to it.....


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## Hunter Allred (Jan 28, 2010)

I have seen studies about floppy ears being associated submissive behavior and lack of aggression. Puppies of all breeds have floppy ears at birth, as do wolves and other highly aggressive animals. Scientists believe most domestic breeds have floppy ears b/c we have selectively bred for submissive and docile behavior. Many breeds used for protection work tend to have erect ears. When foxes were domesticated in an experiment in Russia, the docile domesticated foxes developed soft ears as a side affect.

Whether that applies to the individual dog vice a whole bloodline... who knows


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## Kevin Cyr (Dec 28, 2012)

Hunter Allred said:


> I have seen studies about floppy ears being associated submissive behavior and lack of aggression. Puppies of all breeds have floppy ears at birth, as do wolves and other highly aggressive animals. Scientists believe most domestic breeds have floppy ears b/c we have selectively bred for submissive and docile behavior. Many breeds used for protection work tend to have erect ears. When foxes were domesticated in an experiment in Russia, the docile domesticated foxes developed soft ears as a side affect.
> 
> Whether that applies to the individual dog vice a whole bloodline... who knows


 
you have any links about these studies?


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Hunter Allred said:


> I have seen studies about floppy ears being associated submissive behavior and lack of aggression. ....



I spent a couple of hours researching this last night. This kind of link between floppy ears and behavior in shepherd-types was exactly what I was looking for. If you have any links, even one, I'll be grateful. 

TIA


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## Haz Othman (Mar 25, 2013)

Hunter Allred said:


> I have seen studies about floppy ears being associated submissive behavior and lack of aggression. Puppies of all breeds have floppy ears at birth, as do wolves and other highly aggressive animals. Scientists believe most domestic breeds have floppy ears b/c we have selectively bred for submissive and docile behavior. Many breeds used for protection work tend to have erect ears. When foxes were domesticated in an experiment in Russia, the docile domesticated foxes developed soft ears as a side affect.
> 
> Whether that applies to the individual dog vice a whole bloodline... who knows


Watched that show on nat geo. Believe its called the science of dogs.


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## Hunter Allred (Jan 28, 2010)

Haz Othman said:


> Watched that show on nat geo. Believe its called the science of dogs.


That was one of them for sure. There are also papers I've read over the past few years but can't recall exactly where, or even why I was reading it at the time.


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## Aaron Rice (Jun 12, 2010)

I have seen and owned joefarm dogs with soft years that didn't become solid standing until about 2 years. 

Some people say that nutrition and health play a big role as well.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Kevin Cyr said:


> you have any links about these studies?



It was a Russian study by Dmitri Belyaev but is discussed in short in the book "DOGS" by Raymond and Lorna Coppinger.
There is probably a lot more info with the right digging.


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## Mircea Hemu-Ha (Nov 24, 2009)

It's briefly described in Linsay's "Applied behavior and training". I had this bookmarked, there's some biography at the end:

http://155.97.32.9/~bbenham/2510 Spring 09/Behavior Genetics/Farm-Fox Experiment.pdf


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

i had the fox study at one time but still trying to find it :-(

here is a another fairly comprehensive article that discusses theories on domestication that also includes a lot of details on the fox study :
http://www.scielo.cl/pdf/gayana/v73s1/art06.pdf

for me, these are lots of interesting questions raised regarding how the domestic dog evolved that probably should be studied a lot more, especially regarding the evolution of (drive) behaviors. 
* but one problem might be, that to do it well, it would raise a lot of hackles from the animal rights groups :-(

...but obviously a lot more going on genetically than just implying dogs with floppy ears may be more submissive, as well as always expecting two man eaters to produce more of the same

back to "lab-like" mals ... how many of those Joefarm mals did you see that had floppy ears ??


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## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

Hunter Allred said:


> I have seen studies about floppy ears being associated submissive behavior and lack of aggression.


Most of the guardian dog breeds have floppy ears but I'm not sure I would classify them as submissive. And they seem to have enough aggression when they need to.

Wouldn't mind seeing the studies to see what breeds were used for it.


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## Lynn Cheffins (Jul 11, 2006)

One thing that should be noted is heavier ear leather is a dominant characteristic - so if they were breeding the related animals with softer ears to other animals with softer ears - you are gong to get more of it.


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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

Rick, maybe you already said but what lead you to believe that there might be a nutritional relatiinship? Seems if that were the case you'd see evidence of that elsewhere in the dog for example in the pasterns. 

I have the opposite issue with my Mastiff, her ears are firm at the base and thus do not set properly on her head. Sometimes they look slightly pigtailish. Where does it come from? Its genetic. Both her maternal grandsire and paternal g-Grandsire have the same ears.

Did you happen to dig into the pedigree to see if there's any correlation? Seems likely since one of the posters mentioned a Joe Farm relationship.


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

for Aaron ...
re : "I have seen and owned joefarm dogs with soft years that didn't become solid standing until about 2 years. 
.... Some people say that nutrition and health play a big role as well."

??? can you PM some pics and how many have you seen and owned ?

who are the "some people" ? 
... well known breeders speaking from experience or coffee talk conversations, etc ?

status to date :

so far i have only received a PM from one owner (not a breeder) who had one

course i can understand breeder's not wanting to talk about it unless the dog turned out great and was well known, etc

so i thot maybe Mal rescue groups would have run across it if it was nutrition based, but we don't seem to have any active in that who post here 

so for now, i'm leaning towards the "tits on a boar" frequency with no relation to nutrition.....


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## Aaron Rice (Jun 12, 2010)

rick smith said:


> for Aaron ...
> re : "I have seen and owned joefarm dogs with soft years that didn't become solid standing until about 2 years.
> .... Some people say that nutrition and health play a big role as well."
> 
> ...



PM sent


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## Kadi Thingvall (Jan 22, 2007)

Ears standing depends on the thickness of the ear, the placement on the head, and how tall the ears are. 

It does run in some lines, especially if the breeder is breeding soft ears to soft ears, or soft ears to a pedigree with soft ears in it.

I've seen dogs with some pretty bad nutritional issues that had ears that stood nicely, and dogs that were fed the best diets the owners could get that had floppy ears, I don't think nutrition has much effect. If there were nutritional issues that effected the ears I would expect to see issues elsewhere such as in the feet, pasterns, teeth, etc.

It's not unusual for a puppy who's ears are up prior to teething to have the ears get soft during teething and then come back up again afterward. Usually, on occasion they don't come back up. This is due to the teething process depleting the calcium in the dogs system. However you have to be careful about adding more calcium since that can cause issues in other areas.


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## Kristi Molina (Oct 1, 2012)

I don't have anything huge to add to this except my GSD was very sick when I got her and Then developed a severe case of chronic giardia that lasted months. Her teeth are badly worn from lack of nutrition. But her ears are beautiful. Always have been. I lean more on the side of genetics causing this.















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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

Rick, how large is the dog right now? I noticed something but I haven't any idea if it is typical but it seems to me that the smallest puppies in the litter appear to have upright ears earliest in a litter. Mind you, it's probably not an accurate observation but I've noticed it quite a bit from pictures and videos I've seen on line.

There's a lot of breeders here that can correct me on whether or not this observation is in fact accurate. You never said, or if you did I overlooked it but are they completely down or are they at least slightly errect?


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

not sure anyone cares, but i have received PM's and will post the data if/when i figure out how to maintain the privacy side

but overall, a few basics so far :
1. people have had mals with soft ears that stood up WAY later than the one year mark
2. majority of people who owned soft ear mals had Joefarm in the bloodline and in these cases, nutrition did not appear to be a determining factor
3. soft ear mals have deployed overseas and done a good job

of course this is limited to the number of people who read these posts and i have NO clue what that is, so any data probably would not be worth generalizing

last, i have spent quite some time looking on the net for any soft ear mal studies and have struck out, nor has anyone provided any links that would support their theories on what causes soft ears


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## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

+1 on number 3. 

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## jim stevens (Jan 30, 2012)

Not much of a scientific study, but I have seen more dutch shepherds with soft ears than mals. Mine is at least 75% joefarm bloodlines, with linebreeding to Elgos, perfect ears. Her sire is an import from joefarm, her mother is out of a joefarm bitch, bottom side is KNPV lines from Kukay's Quatro and a joefarm bitch again. The breeder I bought her from has a number of them with these bloodlines and I haven't seen a soft ear, other than teething pups. That said, when I picked out mine, they were teething, and several of the pups had soft ears, mine did not, but I am not aware of any that ended up that way. Obviously this doesn't mean much statistically. I wouldn't have much problem with the tips being down, wouldn't want floppy ears however.


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