My german shepherds had a litter of puppies and I have coat questions

by Jennette

Hi, My german shepherds had a litter of puppies about 6 1/2 weeks ago. Both parents have the typical german shepherd coat, but two of the puppies are little fluff balls and the other two have short hair.

Does this mean that the two longer haired pups will be long haired in adult hood? Also, my major concern is that I have read that long coats have a more challenging time getting their ears to stand if they stand up fully at all.

I ask because the two pups that with long coats have not started to raise their ears and the two short coats ears are fully standing.

I am so concerned because the pup I would like to keep is one of the longer coats but I have never before and wondering if the rules are different:) Thanks


Total German Shepherd:


Congratulations on your new babies and yes you're right that the little fluff balls may very well be coated adults. But at this young age I would not worry too much about the ears not being all the way up.

But this doesn't mean that your "little fluff balls" will have any more problems with their ears coming up than their standard coated littermates. That is a myth.

In fact, ear carriage much the same as coat type, color and all that are based on genetics and are hereditary from parents to offspring.

Some German Shepherd puppies ears come up quickly while others may take months and months to come up or they may be up one day and down the next - this is all common.

But coated puppies ears don't come up as quickly or as often as a standard coated GSD - no, I don't agree. That is false. I've bred both for years in the past and have never seen this to be true.

But there are things you can do to help floppy GSD ears that need a little extra TLC - not all GSDs need this but some do and for those that do it is nice to know it is a possibility.

Ear carriage is exclusive to the individual German Shepherd puppy so sometimes no matter what you do the ears may not come up, the dog is just genetically pre-programmed that way, but overall most GSDs will not have this problem, that severely - so don't stress too much over it this early.