Why Are My Belgian Malinois Ears Floppy? What To I Do?

Belgian Malinois puppies are born with floppy ears and that is completely normal. As they grow up, at the age of 6-8 months Malinois ear should be erect. Sometimes Belgian Malinois doesn’t reach this particular breed standard, why?

There are several factors that could result in floppy ears in Belgian Malinois: poor breeding, lack of proper nutrition, injury, genetics, and the presence of worms/ parasites. Taking good care of the Belgian Malinois, providing high-quality food rich in protein, calcium, and other important ingredients, providing chew toys, make sure that the dog is worm/parasites free will help get a Belgian Malinois with erect ears.

When Should My Belgian Malinois Ears Stand Up

Belgian Malinois pupppies are normally born with floppy ears. At the time between 4-6 months of age, the Belgian Malinois puppy’s ears should change the position and transit from floppy and bent to upright and vertical ears.

Of course not all dogs are the same, some Mals will experience change in ears position sooner or later. But thier ears should be stiff and vertical at the age of 8 months, althoug some Mal owners reporeted their pet’s ears magically grow erect when the dog was 1 year old, so never lose your hope!

The interesting fact is that ear transition should complete at the same time as teething process.

Why Are My Belgian Malinois Ears Floppy?

According to AKC the Belgian Malinois ears should be stiff and vertical otherwise this dog would be disqualified from any dog show/competition.

So why sometimes happens that Belgian Malinois ears remain loose after the teething process has been done and the dog is officially adult?There are various reasons for that.

Bad breeding – if you got your Mal from a puppy mill or a questionable breeder, you can expect some deviation from the standard apperance of the breed, including floopy ears. Bad breeding uslually imply poor diet and lack of medical care in dog’s eary stage of life so floopy ears might be just one of the problems you are face.

Lack of proper nutrition – if puppy’s diet was improper, poor in proteins, calcium, glucosamine, vitamin C and other important nutriants, floppy ears can be a result of that.

Inury( bite wounds) – even a minor one could result in an ear that doesn’t grow properly. Ears are pretty vunerable and accesible area. Bite injuries during play with other dogs are not uncommen. Bite injury may get complicated by ear infection. That is why you should take your puppy to the vet if it has any type of ear injury.

Presence of worms and other parasites – the parasites may steal all nutriants from your puppy, and even if its diet was satisfactory, your Mal is left withouht all these nutritional elements he/she needs

Genetics – if you Mal is a mix or he/she simply inherited floppy ears from one his/her parents, there is nothing do be done. Love it as it is!

How To Make My Belgian Malinois Ears Stand Up?

To help your Mal’s ear stand up you need to provide a proper diet to your dog. It means that you have to feed him/her with the food rich in proteins, calcimum, magensium, glusoamine, vitamin C.

Prepare your Mal a bone broth. You cook beef bones, or chicken/turkey bones. You can use marrow bone, beef feet, chicken wings, feet or turkey neck. Bone broth helps bulid the cartliage in the ears.

You can cook the larger amount and then store it in the freezer and use it every day for 14day. You can serve it as a topper or a special snack. Just make sure you give your Mal the right amount of bone borth every day. For dogs 20-40 pounds – 2 Oz of bone broth per days is enough. If you Mal is larger like 50-80 pounds then 4 Oz is the right portion.

Bone broth contains glucosamine ( amino sugar essential for a heatlhy cartliage), chondroitin ( carliage componenet that promotes water retention) hyaluronic acid ( which also helps build cartliage), calcium and magensium. One study showed that concentration of both calcium and magnesium was higher the longer the broth is cooked.

Bone broth is not only benefical for buliding cartliage and helping ears stand up but also great food for your Mal’s immune system, nerve conduction, good sleep…

Provide good quality chew toys. You may not see the connection between ears position and chewing but its very important for your Mal to excercise jaw, neck and head muscles in order to have ears upright.

Don’t worry if happens that one ear is erect and the other one is still loose. This is pretty common situation. Most probably the other one will erect soon. Also don’t panic if the ear that was upright already, loose its stiffnes and becomes floopy again. It happens. Ears transition is a process, it doesn’t happen over night. So back and forth moments are totally normal.

The last thing you can do to help your Mal’s ear stand up is ear taping. This is something you can do by yourself just you need to follow certain steps. Here is a useful video!

Don’t consider this procedure if your Mal is under 5 months of age. If he/she appeares to be restless and wants to mess up with its taped ears consider a protective cone as a solution.

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