Akita ears and calcium
During our puppy class on Monday night there was a woman who was observing our class for whatever reason. She was a know-it-all type and of course couldn't help herself and had to make comments to the owners as we were working with our dogs or standing by while the dogs socialized. Most of what came out of her mouth was complete crap and I did not give much credit to anything she said. I pretty much smiled and nodded at her face but then dismissed whatever she said when I turned around. Her parting words to me were, "give him some calcium supplements, it'll help to make his ears stand up." I nodded and said thanks, whatever. I know that Kyuubi's big floppy ears with stand up in time as he grows and am not worried right now. I have seen mention of too much calcium in a puppy's diet, etc. and have no intention of giving him calcium supplements as his diet has the recommended amount. I am just curious, where the hell did this come from and has anyone else ever heard of it? For now I think its cute when he runs or trots and his ears bounce up and down. Even though this woman was obnoxious, annoying, and clueless as to what the word "observe" means, her comment made curious about this whole ear thing. Is this something other Akita (JA or AA) have heard of?
Comments
How old is Kyuubi?
I'm not really sure what calcium would have to do with it anyway. I didn't think dog ears had much cartilage in them like human ears...
I think they'll just stand up when they're ready. My friend's now passed on GSD had floppy ears at first, and he'd been weaned right onto a raw diet, with bone. No lack of calcium there! The vast majority of Akitas ears stand up just fine on their own. Some end with a bit of flop to their ears, but not even that many!
(I loved it when my AA still had his floppy ear stage. We knew it wouldn't last, so we just enjoyed it as a fun puppy stage, and now we look at pics and marvel at how little and cute he was).
This know-it-all also blurted out some negative comments about akitas the second she heard Kyuubi was an akita. I tried to politeley correct her and inform her that her assertions weren't entireley correct and wouldn't you know, she happens to go to Japan twice a year for training events and knows all about Japanese breeds and has worked extensively with Chows (which are a Chinese breed and not Japanese) so that's when I knew my words were falling on deaf ears and to just let it go. I really wish at that point I had some kind of a brochure or piece of literature to hand to her so she could read on her own. Has anyone ever seen anything like this? A brochure of sort that gives a brief explanation of the the breed, breed split, maybe even a side by side illustration? (Sorry to divert from the initial topic of the thread)