Pet Information > ASK Experts > Dogs > Dog Breeds > German Shepherds > sams ears

sams ears

19 17:26:46

Question
I have a 8 month old oversized female german sheperd her ears are up but her tips atill are floppy when she runs or if she is chewing they just don't seem solid she eats nutro holistis food and she also ger a vitiman supliment called nupro is her ears ever gonna get solid or will she have the"friendly ears" that I read about

Answer
Cut out the Nupro now.  Throw it away. The worst thing you can do for a growing large breed puppy is give it too much calcium.  Trust me, the service dog schools know much more about caring for large breed puppies than whoever convinced you to give the Nupro.  They forbid giving their puppies any supplements.  Check the Nutro.  Unless it has less than 1.5% calcium by analysis, not the minimum on the bag, switch to something else.  

She should be getting old enough now to excrete excess calcium, but her joints may have been damaged by too much calcium in her diet earlier.  Dog nutrition is much more complex than many think, but well understood.  Most of your dog foods are carefully formulated to provide the complete and balanced diet dogs need.  Adding supplements only creates problems by upsetting the balance.  It is really unfortunate that there are those that give bad advice in order to make money selling things that do more harm than good.  

Most of the Shepherds I see are being fed a well proven diet and have their ears up completely by 3 months.  I hear of others that their ears aren't up until a year or later.  I think there is a good chance your dog's ears will be fine eventually.