Ignorance Was Bliss

Back in the day when I thought I knew a lot, but really knew f.all life was a lot easier; I carried on with life obliviously and didn't overthink. Last night I was talking to a friend/breeder about puppy ears. She knows, like I do, that there is a male who produced weak ears in Zavi's maternal line, but she is of the opinion that the ear strength from Fransisco will override this weakness. As I told her, I will not relax until there is obvious progress in his ears, but I'm well aware it's far too early to worry, and mathematically the risk of genetically soft ears are low.

Because ear cartilage develops dynamically alongside his skeleton and adult teeth, a few targeted management habits can make a huge difference during the critical window between 8 and 20 weeks.The young cartilage at the base of his ears is incredibly soft right now, and physical trauma can snap or weaken the developing cartliage. (No head biting Beti!) 

Chewing is an absolute powerhouse for ear development. The temporalis and masseter muscles wrap right around the skull and the base of the ear canal. The pumping action, strong, repetitive chewing acts like a pump, drastically increasing blood flow, oxygen, and nutrient delivery directly to the head and the ear cartilage bases. But really even now it's a bit early to overthink the ear issue. I guess in recent times we've got used to Fransisco ears - small strong ears which went up in the nest, falling during teething but back up again very early, but really before "Fransico" litters it didn't really work that way! 

The top photo is of Blade and the second is Mikey - they are about 3, maybe 3 and a half months in these photos. I never questioned their ears, I just presumed with time that they would stand, and they did!