Ear Taping

I think I may give up on the ear-taping. I just searched back in my blog and I think I forgot to blog about the ear taping in the first place.

I had noticed a while ago that Riley's one ear was always cocked. It turns out that the back of the ear developed a fold in it, causing the ear to lay back more.

It was suggested to me by a few people that I tape the ear to "train" it to stay where it should be.
Ear taping links: Celestial Pugs || Pug Central

From Celestial Pugs:
"When a puppy goes through the long process of acquiring its adult teeth, all calcium stores in the body will go toward the production of these teeth. This often causes the soft cartilage of an ear to "crash". This is show breeder jargon to describe an ear that suddenly begins to fold in on itself..."

So I've been taping his ears, but it hasn't been going well. I bought the recommended tape but it barely sticks and so then the tape falls off. Sometimes when the tape comes off or I take the tape off, I notice that his ear is irritated and I can't in good conscience do it again, so I give it a few days but then ear crashed again and I have to start all over. But I've read that if you take the tape off for even one day (you are supposed to tape for a week I think) you can un-do all the work.

Well, I guess this is what keeps happening, because the tape comes off and I just can't put it back on when his ear has red marks.

So I may just give up. I taped him again the other day and yesterday, and this morning when we woke up, the tape from one ear was gone AND the ear was crashed. Usually after taping for only a day or two the ear will stay in place at least for a few days. But today it went right back to crash-mode.

In this picture,

... the ear on the left (your left) is the "crashed" ear (known as the "rose" ear), and the ear on the right is the "proper" ear (known as the "button" ear), the ear which is representative of the proper conformation for the Pug Breed.

But really, who cares? His being proper is not as important to me as his comfort and ear health. He's not being shown. I was just concerned that he'd have one ear crashed/rose and one ear proper/button. But who cares.

Here's a very beautiful pug who has rose ears, and I think she is really one of the MOST beautiful pugs there is! Merry

I figured I'd tape if it would do the trick without causing too much bother to Riley. But at this point I don't think it's worth it. He's a cutie either way!