Comment to 'Chimera's Deacon, Chimera's Hogan, & Chimera's Cleo...F2'
  • Our vet does the anesthesia and we do our own ear crops at his clinic with him "monitoring" everything. We are able to do this because of my degrees and training in Animal Sciences...for when I was in school at the University of Illinois I performed about 200 surgeries...including embryo transfers, which are much more complicated than cropping an ear. My vet isn't that good at ears (he did Bullette and Luci). I did Cain, Chief, Deacon, Pheonix, Pac-Man, Lynn, Splash, and most of the others on our site...but always at the clinic with proper anesthesia and veterinary support. Deacon's ears are a little shorter than I personally prefer, but I did them like that because they were floppy. I would say his ears are 1 1/2"-2". For your situation, here is what I would suggest. Look at the leading edge of the ear and you will see how it has a "roll" in it when you hold it up. Typically about 1-2 inches above the scull the roll fades out. I generally crop about an inch above where the roll fades out on our Swinford dogs. You can use a sharpie to mark the ear if you wish. To do that, clean the ear first with water and then alcohol to remove the "ear wax" or you will wash all the sharpie off when prepping the ear for surgery. Still, when you clean the ear (prep) for surgery this sharpie mark will wash about 80% off but you will likely see a little remaining to guide the vet for placement of the ear clamps. I think it is best just to tell the vet how long you want the ear and if you want a "bell" to it or not. I personally don't like the bell, but leave enough "bell" just to ensure the ear will stand for the length of crop I give...which depends on the length, thickness and, perkiness of the dog's ear. The longer the crop, the thicker ear, and floppier the ear the more the bell will needed to hold the ear up.