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Thread: Ears

  1. #1
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    Ears

    I don't want to hijack the ear infection thread but it reminded me of a question I'd meant to ask and forgot.

    Does anyone else have a dog with extraordinarily large ear canals? I swear I can practically fit my fist into Sunnie's canals. Putting cotton into her ears at bath time involves really huge cotton balls so that they don't drop in and get lost.

    Dan's and those of every other dog I've ever had are/were normal.

    Sunnie's teeth look like they'd be more appropriate in the mouth of a smaller dog, too. She definitely doesn't look "planned".

  2. #2
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    Brooks has normal sized ear canals, but they have to be the pinkest, cleanest Lab ears I've ever seen.

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    Senior Dog smartrock's Avatar
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    No large ear canals here, either. Lark's ears stay cleaner than Chase's ever did. Unrelated to size, I will be cleaning Lark's ears when sometimes she'll shake her head furiously while I have the cotton ball in her ear and then the stupid cotton ball disappears. They always fly out and land somewhere not easily detected. With Sunnie I guess I'd be looking down into the well of her ear canal pretty carefully if the cotton ball disappeared!

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    I sniff ears every day...I've never had to clean them for any reason. I'll do it once in a while say, if it's really rainy and I don't want to rely on the single drop after coming into the house for dryness. These are the first two I've had whose ears don't even get a tiny bit of dark wax from time to time. If it was just Sunnie's ears that were clean, I'd figure Danny's anteater tongue had something to do with it...but Dan's are just as clean and Sunnie's not into that kind of maintenance.

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    Senior Dog windycanyon's Avatar
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    Mine are pretty large. That imo, is a good thing because it's the dogs w/ the narrow ones that have far more infections from what I've seen.
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    Quote Originally Posted by windycanyon View Post
    Mine are pretty large. That imo, is a good thing because it's the dogs w/ the narrow ones that have far more infections from what I've seen.
    Interesting...makes sense....never even considered that aspect. I wonder if those cavernous ears were the contribution of a specific one of her breeds or just a quirk. She's probably part bat. (she does have excellent hearing)

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    Senior Dog Snowshoe's Avatar
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    I wondered if larger canals might mean fewer infections too.

    Slightly off topic but on your teeth comment, that's a "big" problem in miniature horses. Seems not every part of their bodies grow small. They often have big horse sized teeth in their much smaller boned jaws, leading to dental problems, overcrowding etc.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Snowshoe View Post
    I wondered if larger canals might mean fewer infections too.

    Slightly off topic but on your teeth comment, that's a "big" problem in miniature horses. Seems not every part of their bodies grow small. They often have big horse sized teeth in their much smaller boned jaws, leading to dental problems, overcrowding etc.
    I wonder if the miniaturized version of some dog breeds have that same issue. Miniature Aussies are the breed that come to mind, but Min Poodles, etc., too. I've never heard and, quite honestly, never really looked into other dogs' mouths all that closely. We do have a Chocolate Lab friend whose teeth are even funnier than Sunnie's….they stick out in addition to being far apart. Sunnie's are just small and wide spaced. None of the breeds that we know about have mouths smaller than what hers is but I'm assuming there's some snipey-faced little dog in her background. Dan's got a really solid mouth (interestingly, with a somewhat snipey face).

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    Katie's ear canals seem to be a little bigger than any of our other labs. She such a good girl about cleaning; she doesn't like it but doesn't try to escape either.
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    Senior Dog windycanyon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SunDance View Post
    Interesting...makes sense....never even considered that aspect. I wonder if those cavernous ears were the contribution of a specific one of her breeds or just a quirk. She's probably part bat. (she does have excellent hearing)
    Haha! I remember one of my pup owners who remarked that she could stick her THUMBS down his ears! That discovery was probably because her first girl (different breeder) had very narrow canals. And yes, had chronic issues.
    Have no idea if there is any basis there, but I do like to be able to stick my finger in there if I do need to clean. So far, it's a seldom occurrence that I have ear gunk.
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