Distraction

So,  if you've been following us for a while you'll remember that Pumpkin came to us with perfectly wonderful, upright ears.  You can see them in her photos in the sidebar.

Then, a few weeks ago something happened, and her right ear started to flop.  I left it alone for a while thinking that was just the way it was going to be.  Then, I kept seeing photos of her with her ear upright, like it should be, and decided to try to coax it to behave.

Someone (I'm too lazy to go back through my comments and determine who, but THANK YOU!) suggested that I use Breathe Rite strips on the inside and outside of the ear to support it and it works like a charm!

I had to add some tape to keep the strips from falling off, but only one strip and the strips and the tape are so light-weight that they don't seem to bother her at all.  Best of all, unlike when I taped Darby's ear, it was very easy for me to get the strips and the tape on her ear all by myself.* 

 
So, do you wanna know what I did to make it so much easier with Pumpkin than it was with Darby?

Say, "yes," because I'm going to tell you anyway!

This time I smeared a generous amount of peanut-butter on the wide, flat arm of Glenn's leather chair, plunked Pumpkin in the chair, and let her lick away at the yummy treat while I messed around with her ear.  It worked like a charm! No struggling and no whining!  

Leda tells me I may have to repeat the taping several times until her ear stays the way it should and of course, there is no guarantee that it will even then.  But, now that I've found two easy solutions -- the strips and the peanut butter distraction -- I won't mind repeating the effort a few more times.

This girl's ears don't need any help:

* Glenn won't help me because he thinks her ear should be left to do whatever it wants.  I guess some of his California-60's-hippie-beach-boy ways are still hanging on! He doesn't like makeup on women, either.