german shepherds ears

Question
QUESTION: hello
i have a purebred german shepherd puppy that he is now 9 months old and his ears are not all the way up one stands up but the other is not at times by the time i knew that his ears was not going to stand up it is too late from what i was told. all along i was told to wait because its normal that a dogs ears go up and down and his did all along but now i am getting worried that his ears will never stand up both his parents and grandparents have all ears up and so does his siblings i did get 1 male and 1 female  from the same litter and both are having issues with there ears the female has hers up most of the time and with the male when he gets excited his ears goes up.  can you help me understand what i am doing wrong?

ANSWER: I am not sure you are doing anything wrong unless his diet is too high in calcium, over 1.5%.  Some dogs are just slow to have their ears stand.  While many have them up by a couple of months, others it is as late as a year old.  I am afraid much of what you hear about dogs is something somebody guessed at a long time ago and has been repeated ever since.  There are things solidly proven by repeated, well designed, controlled studies.  However, I have never seen any confirming that anything you do will help the ears stand up.  I see very few adults whose ears never stood up.  

I sometimes think it is a behavior thing.  That would fit with with your male's ears standing up when he is excited.  

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: may be your right its just that they are purbred German Shepherds my follow up question is having two many shepherds in the house make the ear not go up? i was told that by a breeder.. she also told me to start using msm for dogs

Answer
I have never heard that too many Shepherds cause the problem.  I took time to look back through past questions here.  There are many questions about the ears, mostly they seem to be from average pet owners with infrequent mentions of having more than one Shepherd in the house.  As a rule, I find breeders knowing far less about dogs than they think they do.  On open forums, their answers are full of old wifves' tales and the the way it has always been.  The dog guide school has easy solutions to many common problems that I know work because people I know and I have tried them.  Many breeders have no clue how to solve those problems.  The dog guide school also forbids any supplements.  Since they breed hundreds of dogs a year and X-Ray every single one as an adult, I suspect they have a much better idea of large breed nutrition than most breeders.