[Basil_the_Spoo]

Does anyone want to grow out their poodles ears?

I like this banding tutorial and it seems practical for the everyday person for end goals.

Brushing and combing technique for ears has to be just like taking care of poms. It's good to talk about ear care too, and probably touch on your options as furparents with plucking vs not. We can talk about cleaning technique, banding, and best other practices.

It's an excuse to window shop for snoods too.

I have 3 different ear cleaners.

Is anyone interested?

This is Basil's Saluki x SPOO trim from today 7/18

Spoiler: Picture of a saluki

 

[PeggyTheParti]

Good timing! I’m currently growing out Peggy’s.

Last clip, 06/30/21:

And how she looks today, 07/18/21:

 

[TeamHellhound]

I've decided to let Simon's topknot and ears grow out. I've already ordered some bands because he's almost got enough on top of his head to start with tying some of it up. His ears are still kind of short, though.

2021-7-8 Dogs in Yard DSC_0688 by Rosemary Elwell, on Flickr

I'm sure he's going to be in a lot of different styles over the years. I still want to try my hand with a Dutch clip, but for now, this look suits his personality.

 

[Skylar]

We’re on the opposite side of this challenge. After years of long glorious ear fluff I had to clip Babykins ear hair short.

Puppy Theo and Babykins play daily and he was getting her ear hair matted. It wasn’t fair to her to have to suffer when trimming them short solves the problem. I had to get used to her new look. I think short clipped ear hair looks “puppy-like”.

I can see it takes quite awhile for ear hair to grow out

 

[Dianaleez]

Normie's ears have been growing out for a few months, but I'm undecided about his next cut - which is tomorrow. Fluffy is so poodley, but those short velvety ears are so appealing too.

I think he's probably going short all over.

 

[Basil_the_Spoo]

@PeggyTheParti Nice. You're starting from almost the ear leather. I imagine there will be pieces of PNW confier trees like redwood, evergreen, and douglas fir in our girls' ears at some point...

@TeamHellhound Nice. There's been a handful of top knot challenges in the past. I'll be using rubber bands used for braces. It's going to be my second attempt at banding.

@Skylar Nice lol. I figure people are moving from one side of the hair spectrum to the other. I know we'll all eventually reach our breaking point and "cut it off!!!"

@Dianaleez Nice. Short all over is always a good choice... zero brushing required is always a good choice lol.

 

[Skylar]

. I know we'll all eventually reach our breaking point and "cut it off!!!"

I never had any intention and it broke my heart to trim her ears down. Fluffy ears and a crisp retro top knot were her signature look. Thanks to puppy she has a new look. Maybe we can grow them out at some point. Who knows.

 

[Spottytoes]

I will think on this. 😉 I grew Bobby’s ears out last year and I did love them so much but then it got hot so back to the short ears. We had 8 months of growth cut off and I have to say, I’m not sure if I would want to grow them much longer as the upkeep was starting to increase significantly at that point. BUT I may consider growing them out again after the summer. We’ll see. It will be fun to follow the
grow-out-ear challenge no matter
we decide. 😁

 

[Asta's Mom]

I have found that Asta's ear hair is prone to matts - so I keep his short. Maybe I could grow out his ear hair if I were more diligent.

 

[Starla]

I also went the opposite. Phoebe’s ears were getting in her water (ick!) and they seemed so hot. I know, kind of silly to keep all her puppy fluff but to keep her ears trimmed. I just love a fluffy puppy ear!
before: my thumb is on the bottom of her ear leather

Trimmed with the blue comb down the ears:

now they look like this (thumb on the end of the leather again:

Fluffy puppy ears again!

 

[Ren.]

We’ll join in as well! I’ve always kept Ren’s ears about the same length, however with both a clean face and a banded topknot, they look a bit puny now to me. 😅


@Basil_the_Spoo Thanks for sharing the video on banding, this is very helpful!! In the past, I’ve tried another banding method on Ren’s ears. The method was to only band all the hair past the ear tips together every inch or so (checking with a comb to make sure the ear leather didn’t get banded). However, Ren kept scratching at them, so we stopped for his comfort. I think the bands were pulling and weighting down his ears too much. We're trying double monkey braids with one band in the center right now, and Ren seems to enjoy them so far.😀

Here’s a current picture of sleepy Ren sporting banded ears:

 

[Mufar42]

I had Renns topknot and ears very long. Recently I shaved them both off. I now find it so much easier to just keep then short and thinner. His hair on his ears gets so thick. When his ears were long they were always wet and straggly on the ends as he got them feet whenever he drank.

 

[The Popster]

Does anyone want to grow out their poodles ears?

I like this banding tutorial and it seems practical for the everyday person for end goals.

Brushing and combing technique for ears has to be just like taking care of poms. It's good to talk about ear care too, and probably touch on your options as furparents with plucking vs not. We can talk about cleaning technique, banding, and best other practices.

It's an excuse to window shop for snoods too.

I have 3 different ear cleaners.

Is anyone interested?

This is Basil's Saluki x SPOO trim from today 7/18

View attachment 479251

Spoiler: Picture of a saluki

View attachment 479248
View attachment 479249
View attachment 479250

'plucking vs not.' ? New one to me !
Given to understand plucking was the done thing?

 

[Pavie]

novice question....

Is the ear hair supposed to be different from the rest of the body hair? I've seen some pictures online, but it's really hard to tell from pictures sometimes. Pavie's ear hair is very silky. The thing is, I've never shaved it down, ever. I usually just ask the groomer to keep the ears. It's been scissored shorter once, and the groomers have taken out some mats a couple of times, but it's mostly left untouched. Though the part where the mats were taken out last time seem to grow more like body hair now. So, I'm wondering whether ear hair is different or is this leftover puppy hair?

 

[EVpoodle]

Is the ear hair supposed to be different from the rest of the body hair? I've seen some pictures online, but it's really hard to tell from pictures sometimes. Pavie's ear hair is very silky. The thing is, I've never shaved it down, ever. I usually just ask the groomer to keep the ears. It's been scissored shorter once, and the groomers have taken out some mats a couple of times, but it's mostly left untouched. Though the part where the mats were taken out last time seem to grow more like body hair now. So, I'm wondering whether ear hair is different or is this leftover puppy hair?

Evie is three, and her ear hair is much softer and less tightly curled than the rest of her body. I read somewhere that it is not unheard of for some poodles to have softer ear hair. How old is Pavie? If you look down at the roots of the ear hair is it a different texture more like the body than the visible hair?

Does anyone want to grow out their poodles ears?

I have been growing out Evie's ears for about 3ish months now and they are about .5" long, and I am planning on continuing to let them grow. I will say that we would be happy to join the challenge but, because I show Evie I will have to keep the ends tidy.

 

[Pavie]

Evie is three, and her ear hair is much softer and less tightly curled than the rest of her body. I read somewhere that it is not unheard of for some poodles to have softer ear hair. How old is Pavie? If you look down at the roots of the ear hair is it a different texture more like the body than the visible hair?

Pavie will turn 2 years old next month. I just checked the roots of his ear hair and it's still a soft, more straight texture.

 

[Basil_the_Spoo]

'plucking vs not.' ? New one to me !
Given to understand plucking was the done thing?

There's a lot of threads on the topic if you search. We'll touch on it over time. It's an opinionated topic. Some 100% for it for health. Some are 100% against it. Then there's the middle "if it's not broken then why fix it".

I had to because basicall was getting mini pine-cone sized wax-hair balls in her ears that looked like baby corn at a salad bar.

If it's helpful, here's our past ear care threads:

What you don't want in a poodle ear

Well. I found a gross ear wax hair ball in Basil's other ear, and cut it out. Each ear had a gross ear wax ball. It was a little nerve recking when her foot would curl from me tugging and maneuvering the hair ball to cut it out. Basil's my first furbaby and our journey about...

www.poodleforum.com

A picture of dirty ears

I've done 2 pluckings ever and I need to wipe them out for a 3rd time.. this happened over the course of a month. It's not that bad of a process and I didn't feel like I was hurting her. It's inexpensive and clean. I'm glad I did. The gross stuff that your trying to wipe out is the brown...

www.poodleforum.com

Evie is three, and her ear hair is much softer and less tightly curled than the rest of her body. I read somewhere that it is not unheard of for some poodles to have softer ear hair. How old is Pavie? If you look down at the roots of the ear hair is it a different texture more like the body than the visible hair?


I have been growing out Evie's ears for about 3ish months now and they are about .5" long, and I am planning on continuing to let them grow. I will say that we would be happy to join the challenge but, because I show Evie I will have to keep the ends tidy.

How do you keep the ends of her ears tidy?

Teach us your secrets to show dog quality ears. A raising tide raises all ships

 

[EVpoodle]

How do you keep the ends of her ears tidy?

Teach us your secrets to show dog quality ears. A raising tide raises all ships

To start with, I make sure that her water bowl is small enough that she cannot dip her ears in it.
In regards to food I feed Evie on a plate, because Evie likes to eat in from around the edges and if I feed her in a bowl she dips her ears in it. Beyond that, I just am ready to wipe her ears if she gets something nasty on them.

I know some people use happy hoodies (I think that is what they are called) when they feed them. But, I don't use one because I want my poodle to be able to be a dog even though she is being showed. Even, if that means extra work for me to keep her ears clean.

 

[Basil_the_Spoo]

Anyone want to talk about ear cleaning?

I found the trick using cotton balls is to wet the cotton ball, then squeeze it in their ear, them start to wipe out the brown stuff.

Would not recommend this product. It has a strong medicated smell like Vicks rub.

After cleaning both ears we then activated the rolling zoomies. (Vid above). I'm not sure if the smell throws her into gear or if the process is the cause of zoomies.

She rolls around before she tires herself out.

 

[94Magna_Tom]

I wonder if squeezing it out (the medicated cotton ball) in the ear causes liquid to get down into the ear canal, and that's what she's trying to clear out?