Border Collies Ear Guide

As you plan to get a puppy, there are several factors that you might consider based on your unique preference. You want to get a puppy, and because of your dynamic personality, you’re searching for a puppy with the right energy and intelligence. Oh, wait! A Border Collie might be the perfect breed for you as your companion.

Border collies are quite cute, and these puppies have a fluffy white or black appearance. On maturity, they become slim dogs possessing silky hairs with pretty markings. One other unique feature of this dog breed is their ears- very expressive ears they’ve got.

These cuties come in an array of shapes and sizes that you can think of, from totally floppy to absolutely erect/pricked. We also find other varieties in between this spectrum.

Will the ears of this breed come up or down? That is the most common question among dog owners. Is there a way to tell? Let us find out in this post.

Young puppies for this breed begin their development by having floppy ears. As at the fourth or sixth week, the ears of dog breeds become firm. Also, by the end of five months, this breed’s ears should now be fully erect.

When the ears remain floppy after nine months, there is a great tendency for them to stay floppy throughout the dog’s life.

Let us answer a few questions most Border Collie owners usually ask:

How will the ears of my Border Collie appear?

For dogs, one elementary thing to determine is how their ears will eventually turn out to appear. It will bring a dog owner into absolute shock if he finds out his German Shepherd never gets to have pricked ears.

That might not be the case for a border collie, as their ears are very complex to predict since the shapes and sizes vary. There are lots of changes that your puppy would get to experience as it grows from six months of age. They usually refer to this age as the ‘teenagehood’ stage of your dog, and the change is quite awkward.

A significant factor that determines the direction of your dog’s ears is ‘Teething’. At this stage, your dog’s ears will keep changing their directions until the dog gets to the adult stage. 

How your dog’s ears will eventually turn out to be is determined by a lot of different factors which are genetic or environmental. These factors cannot usually be guessed out or predicted. However, certain clues that suggest the results exist.

Here are some clues to look out for:

  • You can determine the shape of your dog’s ears by looking at that of its parents. There is no guarantee that there will be a resemblance later on in life.
  • Check out the ears when he is just about 2-3months. If your puppy’s ears get excited when he is happy, then it might be an indicator of the shape of its ears as an adult.
  • When you discover that your puppy’s ears are placed closer together and high on the head, it will most likely be erect. However, heavier and low-set ears will most likely become floppy, the same as heavily fringed ones.

About the Border Collie

In the later part of the nineteenth century and the dawn of the twentieth century, this dog breed was developed. The aim for the breed was for it to be a working dog-breed to herd livestock. This Britain developed breed is favored for its agility and intelligence.

There was a distinction between this dog and other regular dogs that worked on the farm and weren’t purebred.

The dog breed stems from the region (border) between Scotland and England; that is clearly why it is named border collie. They gave the name to the breed in the year 1915 to distinguish it from its cousins. Its cousins have already been bred for entertainment.

These working dogs soon gained popularity and were majorly exported around the world, particularly in America and Australia. This breed was featured in a movie called “Babe,” and as we speak, they are highly sought after and take part in dog sports.

Analyzing the Border Collie:

It is rather difficult to mix up a border collie for a Labrador or Dalmation, as all border collies look very alike. However, there is a dog-to-dog variation in how this breed appears, much more than what is seen in ‘pure’ breeds.

The color variants of this breed are not just black and white; they can come in three colors which are white, brown, and black. Other colors in which they appear include:

  • Brindle
  • Red
  • Sable
  • Brown
  • White

The coats of this breed vary from dog-to-dog and can be rough and long or smooth and short.

The reason for this variation in the color, coat texture, and other features goes way back to the history of the breed itself. When the reed was formed originally, there was no set standard for how the appearance should be. Breed standards are simply the guidelines that dictate the look of an ideal specimen.

These standards are used to judge how close the breed is to the ideal. We see the practicality of this in shows where dog breeds are picked as winners by making use of this set standard. They select the dogs to reproduce the desirable genes in the puppies of the new dog owner.

There was no specific appearance that guided the breeding of this working dog breed. During the twentieth century, it was part of a randomly mixed working-dog-class and was never suitable for conformation exhibition.

The yardstick used in judging these dogs is how they perform in the face of obedience and agility. Just remember how the sheep trials were carried out in the film titled ‘Babe.’

During the trials, the dogs lead a flock of sheep around confinement, following the signals given by the shepherd. The interactive nature and speed of the competition are not different from that of a conformation show.

Here is what the judges look out for during sheep trials:

  • Intelligence
  • Enthusiasm
  • Responsiveness to commands
  • Athletic persona
  • Speed
  • Endurance
  • Intense focus
  • Ability to quickly change direction

Inclusion of the Border Collie into the American Kennel Club (AKC)

The AKC fixed this dog breed into the Miscellaneous Class until it finally identified the breed as a show dog in 1995. In that same year, it became possible for this dog breed to undergo conformation showing.

Globally, there seems to be a subtle shift in the focus of the border collie’s working abilities, to getting it conformed to a standard breed appearance. This shift has also met lots of antagonisms, as the dog’s status as a pure working dog is to be protected. At the heart of the controversy is the striking appearance of the cute puppy ears.

The Simple Basics of Border Collie Ears

The ear anatomy is the same for every dog, and it comprises the outer, middle ear, and inner ear. That soft and furry ear flap that you get to see is the outer ear; the ear canal is also a part of this division.

The structure of an average dog’s outer ear is such that it can change direction to pick up sound. On average, dogs have much larger ears than humans, and the ears are properly supplied with blood vessels, nerves, and muscles. It is no news that dogs hear much better than humans typically do.

The ears of dog breeds are also a plus to your dog’s appearance. The position, shape, and size of the ears are determined by the dog breed. This narrative changes when we talk about Border Collies as their ears vary between floppy and erect ears.

Other interesting ear variants you will find among these breeds include tag ears and airplane ears. In tag ears, one-third of the out ear stands erect, and the rest points forwards. We can describe airplane ears to fly sideways.

For some dogs, the appearance or nature of one ear may vary from the other ear; others might have ears that change appearance because of the dog’s mood.

Studies have shown that there is a correlation between the dog’s ear and the variation in genes. The different ear types that may be seen in this dog breed may stem from the ‘good’ genes it used to have as a shepherd dog.

One particular trait of the border collie that is usually highlighted in the standard for this breed is the ear quality. Most fans and lovers of this breed never stop expressing how fascinated they are about its ‘ear confusion’ trait.

With the rise in popularity of the border collie as a show dog, there is also a rise in the desire for owners to want to attain a perfect ear.

There are two schools of thought regarding the reason we should breed border collies. Some believe it should remain a working dog, while others only push for reproducing it to attain a standardized appearance.

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