Cropped and Natural Ears

What cropping is

A surgical procedure done under general anaesthetic, usually between eight and twelve weeks, where part of the ear leather is removed and the remaining ear is posted upright while it heals.

Healing takes several weeks and involves the ears being taped and re-taped. It is done by a veterinarian.

The Cane Corso has been cropped traditionally for as long as it has worked, originally because a hanging ear is something livestock or an intruder can take hold of. Most Corsos in the United States are still cropped.

Cropped

These puppies are already cropped and past the healing stage.

If you want a puppy cropped that isn’t

Ask us early. There’s a window, roughly eight to twelve weeks, and after it the procedure isn’t appropriate.

If a puppy is already spoken for as natural we won’t crop it, and if you want natural we won’t talk you out of it.

It is the one decision on a puppy that cannot be revisited, so it is worth settling before you settle on a colour. The coats in this litter, and what every puppy has already been started on.

What healing involves

Worth knowing whichever you choose, because it is the part nobody describes.

After the procedure the ears are supported upright, usually taped to a post or a cup, and that support is changed regularly over roughly four to eight weeks while the edges heal and the cartilage learns to stand. Some dogs stand quickly and some need posting for longer, and a small number never stand perfectly on one side.

Through it the puppy needs the ears kept clean and dry, needs to be stopped from scratching at them, and needs the tape changed by somebody who knows how. It is not painful once the first few days have passed, but it is a genuine commitment of weeks.

Our cropped puppies are past that stage before they go home, so what you collect is a dog with healed, standing ears rather than a project.

The styles you will hear named

Short, medium and long, sometimes called battle, show and long crop. The difference is simply how much ear leather is left.

A shorter crop stands more easily and needs less posting. A longer crop is what the show ring in this country generally prefers, takes longer to stand, and can need weeks more support.

None of it changes the dog. It is entirely appearance, and the choice belongs to whoever is going to live with the animal for the next decade, which is why we say on every card what a puppy already is rather than leaving you to ask.

Where it stands legally

Cropping is lawful across the United States and is performed by veterinarians, though a handful of states restrict who may do it and require it to be under anaesthesia, which it should be regardless.

It is banned or heavily restricted in much of Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia, which is why a natural ear is increasingly what the breed looks like internationally and why show photographs from abroad look different to American ones. Some veterinary bodies here oppose it as a cosmetic procedure.

We are not going to argue the ethics of it at you. We do both, we say which each puppy is, and the decision is yours. Every puppy we have, with ears marked on each card, or the colours in this litter.